


the natural state of matter

by mahistrado, mbwff



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alien Hoshi, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Chickens, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Nonbinary Character, Other, RDF (Real Dog Fiction), Shawol Hoshi, Wonu's Aimless Millennial Depression, Yeoseodo Island, lilo and stitch AU, slice of life sci-fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25498918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahistrado/pseuds/mahistrado, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mbwff/pseuds/mbwff
Summary: “Can you sell a whole herd of chickens?” Wonwoo asks absently. “A herd? A flock? Do they have to stay together? They might miss each other.”“Wonwoo, what the fuck,” Seungkwan snaps. “I don’t know and neither do you. Just get someone to sell the house for you and come home.”—A lot of things change after Wonwoo's uncle dies:Jeon Wonwoo has a house now, apparently.Jeon Wonwoo has a dog now, apparently.Jeon Wonwoo has an alien squatter now, apparently.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi
Comments: 59
Kudos: 123





	1. something

Yeoseodo’s hospital is small and religious and smells stale. The hospital asked if they wanted a priest and Wonwoo’s mother shook her head quickly, violently.

The taxi from the hospital takes them to the docks and Wonwoo has to hold his uncle’s ashes in his lap in the backseat, tucked into a black lacquer box and balanced on his knobby knees. Wonwoo’s mother is still in her work clothes, pants creased from the ferry ride. In the rearview mirror, she looks exhausted, eyes drooping and hair escaping from her usually neat bun in feathery little pieces around her face.

“This one looks fine, right, Wonwoo-yah?” his mother calls from the front seat. “No boats or nets or anything, this should be good. You can let us off here,” she says to the taxi driver. They roll to a stop at the edge of the water. The ocean looks crowded by the clouds, low and heavy and dark like a summer storm is swelling inside them.

“ _Aish_ , it’s going to rain, let’s do this quick,” his mother calls, staggering a little as she gets out of the front seat. “Do you have him?”

Wonwoo’s fingers tighten on the box. “Yeah, I got him.”

The wind whips his hair into his eyes as they stand at the edge of the water. “I hate to ask, but.” She pauses and purses her lips. “You’ve been so good for him, do you want to do it?”

Wonwoo hums. He doesn’t know if it counts as _good for him_ if he died on Wonwoo’s watch. Nevertheless, he carefully balances the box on his palm and tries to open it with one hand. His mom hovers nervously near him, but Wonwoo gets the sense she doesn’t want to touch it. The box wiggles, his hand shaking, and with a thud that sounds far louder than the wind, it falls out of his hands onto the dock. He dives for it and his mother shrieks.

“Oh,” Wonwoo says. He feels a smile forming, though it’s very much not the time. “Oh shit, sorry, sorry Uncle Jae—”

His mother snorts. Wonwoo looks up at her and her mouth is pursed tight, but her eyes look brighter than they have all day. “Oops,” Wonwoo drawls, and his mother loses it, letting out a cackle that would scare the rain away as she crouches down on the dock to pick up her brother’s ashes. Wonwoo joins her, a deep belly laugh that falls out of his mouth easily. They laugh themselves to tears and then they laugh themselves dry, crouching in front of each other on a rickety dock on a rocky island in the middle of nowhere.

“Okay, okay,” his mother says, wiping her eyes. “ _Hoo_. Okay.” She picks up the box and opens it, letting Wonwoo remove the bag of powder, the outside thick with ash.

Wonwoo marvels at how a whole person can fit into a little bag like that. It makes him feel very hollow, to know that if he was condensed down to bare essentials he wouldn’t even fill a fishbowl.

“Ah, do it quick,” his mother flaps. “And don’t breathe it in. I don’t know why he couldn’t just get put at the family plot with the rest of us, honestly. If your grandfather was still alive—”

“Ma,” Wonwoo groans. He carefully peels the bag open, and as the wind picks up, he slowly pours the contents back into the sea. The water swallows up the ash immediately, until the last little bit is dissolved into the salt.

They stand there for a while.

What do you really say? Wonwoo doesn’t know.

He came to Yeoseodo on a righteous wave of filial piety, determined to show his mother he had skills other than his fingers cramping into WASD formation while he sleeps. His uncle, old as time immortal, was dying and had been dying, it feels like, for as long as Wonwoo has been alive. Home care was expensive, hospice refused by a man who had been alone for too long to imagine anything else.

Wonwoo could boil water and sleep on the floor and whatever else his uncle needed him to do. He had a lot of time between before and now to spare.

So he came to Yeoseodo, and as fate would have it, his barnacle-crusted uncle died only a month later—rigid and cold in his cold, rigid bed. Wonwoo found him after feeding his uncle’s ten cranky, fat chickens in the coop to the side of the house, hands still coated in dust from the grain.

He didn’t really know him, not as a man. He knew his uncle’s routine, how to wash his soft, fleshy body, how to nod in a way that made him feel like his rambling, half-baked reminisces were being heard. Death had made his uncle unkind even before it took him, too many aches and pains to ever really be present.

“He was a good man,” Wonwoo’s mother says, staring at the water. “Even though,” she pauses, shakes her head a little. “He was a good man. I’m sure he was happy to have you with him.”

Wonwoo nods. And like that, their little family becomes smaller. Two of them, now.

“Well,” his mother says, wiping off the invisible dust on her knees. She looks up at the sky. “It’s going to rain, huh? Let’s get you back to the house to pack before the lawyer calls. Do you have any laundry? I can run a quick load before the last ferry, let me just—”

Until that very second, Wonwoo had been under the impression he was leaving Yeoseodo that day. He thought that the island and his time there was unrelated to the stone he felt inside him, but as soon as his mother mentions leaving, he connects the two feelings together. Wonwoo doesn’t want to leave, not yet. There are things about Yeoseodo that he wants to stay for. He likes how in winter the black streets turn grey with salt, he likes how the roads were unplanned and carved into the side of the brittle, brown rock of the island in a way that makes no sense to him.

“Let’s head back to the house,” Wonwoo says. “Can you walk up the hill?”

“I carried you inside of me for ten months, Jeon Wonwoo,” his mother says. “I can walk up a hill.”

* * *

On his phone screen, his 8-bit character in a business suit falls off of the Infinite Staircase just shy of the level clearance. Wonwoo swears under his breath.

At the stove, his mother calls, “What?”

“Nothing,” Wonwoo says quickly and locks his phone. He flips his phone a few times in his hands and stares out the windows facing into the sprawling yard. The weather is still bad, the thick and hot fog refusing the burn off through the afternoon. Outside, the dog walks into the frame of the window and sits facing Wonwoo with a stare so human-like that it makes his heart rate pick up. Wonwoo only lasts a few seconds before he is intimidated into looking away.

“Wonwoo-yah,” his mom says. She has three pots going on the stove. Wonwoo tried to ask if he could help earlier, but she shooed him off saying that it would take more effort to explain than if she just did it herself. “I’m going to pack these by portion. So only take them out of the freezer the night before you’re going to eat it. Got it?”

She started cooking after the will reading over the phone by his uncle’s attorney, when Wonwoo was declared the sole inheritor of the house and all of its contents, along with a modest monetary sum. The excuse to stay felt like more of a gift than the house to Wonwoo.

“Got it,” Wonwoo echoes. He unlocks his phone again. He’s thinking about restarting his game, but he’s already feeling the edges of a blue-light headache creeping around his temples. He’d usually push through it for lack of something better to do, but the thought of making himself sick over a game in front of his mom makes him feel even worse. Maybe he could pick up reading. Like, a book. Before he can think about that further, his phone lights up in his hand with Seungkwan’s KKT profile picture of him and his yappy family dog, Bookeu, with their faces pressed together.

Wonwoo contemplates screening the call. Then, he answers anyway.

"Hello," Wonwoo says.

“You look so tired,” Seungkwan says, and his tone makes it sound like it’s Wonwoo’s fault.

“Yeah, my uncle died,” Wonwoo says.

Like he’s making a concession, Seungkwan pushes out his lips and says consideringly, “True.”

Wonwoo’s mother swoops into the frame, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “Ah, is that Boo Seungkwan? Let me talk to him.”

“Hello _eommeonim_ , _”_ Seungkwan says sweetly, his face lighting up to greet her. Wonwoo is his mother’s only child, but sometimes he feels like he might not even be the favorite. She snatches the phone out of his hands and bustles back to the kitchen, already chattering away at Seungkwan about all of the food she’s preparing.

“I know, he’s so skinny,” his mother laments, her voice thin over the sound of the food bubbling away on the stove. “That’s why I’m cooking. If I leave him alone in this big house, he’ll just eat eggs and ramyeon and waste away.”

Seungkwan tsks and says, “What is he going to do on that ugly island without you?”

She sighs deeply. “The weather is terrible and this house is falling apart,” she says, waving one hand and stirring a pot with the other. Then, she drops her voice to a lower level that Wonwoo can still hear just as clearly. “But you know how he is. He’s got it in his head now that he wants to stay.”

Seungkwan echoes her sigh and says in a crinkly, low voice, “How has he been?”

Well. Wonwoo stands and walks into the dining room so he doesn’t have to listen anymore. He stretches his back and rolls his ankles. He catches sight of the chicken coop and swears under his breath; in the commotion, he forgot to feed them this morning.

He goes back to the kitchen and says, “Mom, I’m going to show Seungkwan the chickens.”

“Ah, okay okay,” she says, spinning around. She waves at the phone as Wonwoo takes it from her and flips it back around towards himself. “Seungkwan-ah, I will send you a text this week about dinner. You and Hansol. Okay? Okay. Talk soon.”

“Byeeeeee,” Seungkwan says, waving even though Wonwoo is already walking away.

“Hi,” Wonwoo says, pushing open the front door. His skin goes all clammy the second he steps out into the gloom. He hears the dog start to growl from somewhere, even though Wonwoo can’t see him. He sighs.

On the phone, Seungkwan raises his eyebrows. “So, _hyungnim_ , you’re a homeowner.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wonwoo says. He ambles out towards the chicken coop. He kicks a stray rock and it knocks hollowly against the wire fence. “I’m going to stay and clean up the house to sell.”

“Yeah, your mom told me,” Seungkwan says knowingly. He’s judging. Wonwoo shrugs.

“It seems like the right thing to do.” Wonwoo doesn’t really expect anyone to understand; he doesn’t fully get it either. But the thought of leaving feels worse than staying, and that’s the most he’s felt about anything in months. If he said that to Seungkwan though, he would get weird about it. So instead, he unhooks the gate to the chicken coop and steps inside.

“Do you want to see the chickens?” Wonwoo flips the camera without asking. “There are ten of them.”

“Um, okay.” Seungkwan says. “It looks like it smells.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wonwoo says. One of the cream-colored chickens scuttles over and pecks the toe of his beat up Adidas sneaker. She makes a disgusted clucking noise and flaps her way backwards.

“She hates you,” Seungkwan notes.

Wonwoo flips the camera back around. “Well, maybe. I’m still the one feeding her, though.”

“So, what? You’re just going to like, flip your dead old uncle’s house and take care of chickens?” Seungkwan says it like it’s a joke.

Wonwoo thinks to himself, _well, yeah._ But the way Seungkwan talks about it makes him look at the chicken coop in a different way. It is pretty smelly and Wonwoo doesn’t know anything about taking care of chickens besides how much he’s already been feeding them. They’ve been okay so far. Anyway, Wonwoo knows Seungkwan isn’t judging his ability to take care of the chickens. He’s judging _Wonwoo,_ generally. He busies himself by going to scoop out the grain into the hanging feeder with one hand.

“Can you sell a whole herd of chickens?” Wonwoo asks absently. “A herd? A flock? Do they have to stay together? They might miss each other.”

“Wonwoo, what the fuck,” Seungkwan snaps. “I don’t know and neither do you. Just get someone to sell the house for you and come home.”

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything. He smooths the mound of grains into a flat surface and scuttles back as all of the chickens flap up to feed. Seungkwan’s face and voice soften, even through the grainy call quality. “I already talked to my coworker’s boyfriend’s sister-in-law who works at Webzen about a developer position there. I sent you an email last week which is _fine_ that you ignored because your uncle died, but you can’t just _hide_ forever, okay?”

“I’m not hiding,” Wonwoo says. He walks out of the coop and locks the gate behind him. “I’m trying to be responsible. Uncle Jae left the house to me on purpose.”

“So random, honestly,” Seungkwan comments. “Were you even close?”

Wonwoo sits on the porch and braces his palm against the dark, dusty wood. He looks out onto the overgrown lawn, the treeline that borders the property. He thinks of his cranky, dying uncle. The last month had been quiet and often frustrating for the both of them, but there were glimpses of the man that his uncle used to be. The mailman teared up when Wonwoo told him that his uncle had passed.

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo answers, eventually.

Seungkwan sighs. Wonwoo wishes that Seungkwan wouldn’t take his decisions so personally.

“It won’t be that long. And I’ll talk to your coworker’s ex-sister,” Wonwoo acquiesces, though he doesn’t even know why he’s trying.

“My co-worker's boyfriend's sister-in-law,” Seungkwan corrects, but he does perk up, looming closer to the screen. “Okay. Fine. But if you're not back in Seoul in two months, I'm coming there. And you know how much I hate islands that aren't mine.”

Two months? Sure. Wonwoo doesn’t know how long it takes nor what “dealing” with a house even entails, but two months is longer than he’s ever worked on anything, so. “Alright.”

“Okay, Jeon Wonwoo,” Seungkwan says, long-suffering. He pouts. “Don’t forget to eat in between rounds of League.”

“I’m playing more Starcraft lately,” Wonwoo informs him. “But okay. Yeah. I’ll talk to you later.”

"Bye bye bye," Seungkwan says, and blinks out of existence.

Wonwoo sets his phone down next to him and lays down on the deck. Above him, there are layers and layers of cobwebs lacing an old, gold and glass light fixture. He closes his eyes. He’ll clean that tomorrow.

  
  
  


His mother will not leave until she confirms that every tupperware in the house is full of food; rich, spicy stew and seafood pancakes with whatever old fish she could find in the fridge, pickled green onion and even a pallet of ramyeon on top of the fridge. When she does finally acknowledge that she has to leave before she misses the last boat back to the mainland, Wonwoo walks her down to the docks carrying all her bags. She hands him a couple bills and rubs her thumb on his cheekbone.

“Cut your hair soon,” she says. “I would have done it if I had more time.”

“I can do it myself if it starts to bug me,” Wonwoo says. She gives him a withering look. “Or I can ask someone in town, yeah.”

He’s halfway up the hill when he hears the ferry horn bellow.

Wonwoo has always slept like shit in this house and tonight will be no exception, even with how exhausted he is. The dog won’t stop looking at him funny. It’s unsettling. He tries to go into his uncle’s old room to change the sheets before bed and Jinki growls at him, sitting resolute in front of the door.

“Oh, so I can’t go in there?” Wonwoo asks the dog. It doesn’t move. “I need to sleep somewhere, Jinki.”

Jinki hops up onto the bed, spins in a circle and then folds himself up in the very center of the bed.

“Where am I gonna sleep?” Wonwoo asks. Jinki makes it very clear that that’s Wonwoo’s problem, tucking his nose under his paws and closing his eyes.

Wonwoo curls up in the futon on the floor and searches online for if dogs can grieve until he falls asleep.

  
  
  


Sometime in the last dregs of night bleeding into morning, Wonwoo startles awake to the sound of Jinki’s bark. He sits up blearily with his heart beating fast, ears ringing, limbs singing with adrenaline. There is a deep and unsettling groaning coming from the direction of the yard. Jinki, who has shown Wonwoo nothing but suspicion and hostility in the month that they’ve known each other, runs back into the room and tucks his body underneath Wonwoo’s arm with a whimper.

Dazed, Wonwoo pats his head and gets onto his knees. Another monstrous groan tears into the house and Wonwoo scrambles to his feet as Jinki sprints off again, barking.

Wonwoo creeps down the staircase slowly. The inky black of the hallway is relieved by a sickening green light flickering in through the front windows before dying back into darkness. Jinki comes back and circles around his feet where he’s stalled and Wonwoo swallows.

He makes the rest of the way down the stairs and just barely has the head to think of grabbing a knife from the knife block in the kitchen before he throws open the front door and steps bare-footed out into the yard.

Where the chicken coop once stood, lopsided and rotting, there’s just pitch black– a stinking, sulfurous hole bored deep into the earth, plumes of dark smoke billowing out of it. There’s a noise almost too low to hear emanating from the hole, pulsing and making Wonwoo’s head throb. Jinki doesn’t even bark, just whimpers and runs back into the house, leaving Wonwoo alone with his knife clutched limp in his fist.

Wonwoo fumbles his phone with sweaty fingers before managing to turn on the flashlight. It doesn’t help much in terms of the hole but it casts everything in a terrifying grey-green light, like Wonwoo is the main character in a horror film. He doesn’t move, staring into the gaping maw of earth that once was a little shed.

He’s terrified, the hairs on his arms standing on end and his skin burning with panic and then, from deep within the rubble, there’s a high-pitched, industrial noise that almost sounds like a scream. It tears through him, cutting him down until he’s crouched on his heels, hands by his ears.

Something staggers out of the hole, accompanied by a fetid stench. It gurgles, deep and guttural, as from the smoke of the hole it crawls, something like hands digging into the soil to pull itself out of the wreckage.

Wonwoo gags; the thing looks like a skinned body, a half-formed fetus but it’s moving like liquid, a mash of muscles and fibers and it _moans,_ a horrible, suffering noise. Wonwoo wants to run, he wants it so bad, to pick his bare feet up from the loamy soil and flee but he can’t. It’s like the worst kind of car crash, watching the thing come together into some shape.

The first recognizable thing that forms is a face, bright red and shiny and human enough, and it’s wailing, pulling itself up onto two columns that become raw, red legs and stretching itself into something shaped like a human. With a ragged moan, the thing bites itself, hard, above what looks to be its elbow and tears, trying to break through the muscle and sinew forming. It’s horrible, like watching something be born in reverse, as the creature tries in vain to sink its blunt teeth into the flesh of its arm.

Wonwoo gasps; he can’t help it, and the second it’s left his mouth the creature looks at him, face slack. It says something, then, but to Wonwoo it just sounds like English underwater, unintelligible and eerie.

“What?” Wonwoo says.

The creature groans again, and gestures at the knife clasped in Wonwoo’s fist. “Give it to me,” it groans, using its other hand to try and dig into its flesh. “Give it to me.”

Wonwoo just holds the knife tighter, shaking his head no. The creature grunts again and pulls, seemingly from inside its own abdomen, a complex-looking weapon and points it at him.

“Give it to me,” it says again, brandishing whatever is in its hand, and Wonwoo throws it at the thing, terrified. The knife soars through the air and lands, lodged in the creature’s foot. It bellows, loud enough to shake Wonwoo where he squats. Then, it pulls the knife out with a groan and pink slimy fluid pours out. Wonwoo gags again, falling forward onto his hands and knees. He doesn’t want to see any more, wants to die ignorant with his face in the dirt but he can’t look away as the thing in front of him roars and slices clean downwards, as the stump of it’s arm thumps lifelessly into the dirt and melts into the same pink goo, as the creature screams and uses its fingers to root around desperately in the puddle of itself, clearly looking for something.

Wonwoo blacks out.


	2. solid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fyi jinki the dog throws up in this chapter so if you don't want to deal with that it's at the end of the first section xoxo

Hoshi has his weapon pointed at Jinki, his lip curled up. “Who are you?” He growls at the dog. Jinki picks his head up from the dog bed and stares down the barrel of Hoshi’s strange gun.

“Please, stop,” Wonwoo says for the hundredth time that hour, feeling mildly out of his mind. “That’s the dog. You met him.”

Hoshi lowers his weapon and slides over to the window off the kitchen. He pokes his head out and then draws the blinds. He flits to the window on the other side of the room and does the same thing.

It is making his head hurt to try and marry the pulsing, growing mass of new flesh and bone from the night before with the pale, stumbling person threatening old, indifferent Jinki in his kitchen. Wonwoo woke up in his bathtub with a shoe under his head and a very pink, very human-looking Hoshi crying next to him. Hoshi had stumbled through some rehearsed introduction about being an interplanetary scout or whatever, tears spilling down his cheeks. Since then, Wonwoo has seen Hoshi attempt to interrogate the toilet water and shoot his front door with some sort of rubber putty.

It would be stupid to be scared of Hoshi. So now, he’s just hungry and tired and overwhelmed.

Wonwoo takes an aborted step towards the cabinets, looking for a bowl for cereal. He flinches with his whole body when Hoshi slaps a hand against his chest.

“Stay away from the windows,” Hoshi says, not looking at Wonwoo. He looks down at his weapon, still clutched tightly in his hand.

“This isn’t for you,” Hoshi says quickly, gesturing irresponsibly with the weapon. “It’s just in case. I would rather we’re prepared.”

“Prepared for _what_?” Wonwoo asks, increasingly desperate for information of any kind. He can’t decide if he’s a hostage or if he’s just humoring Hoshi’s paranoia.

“Whoever is following me,” Hoshi says, finally. “Just stay where I can see you.” He looks deranged, antenna standing at alert with his head on a constant swivel. He pauses to level Wonwoo with a look. “Please.”

Wonwoo sits back at the table. Hoshi nods at him and begins to rummage through the cabinets. He wrenches one of the upper cabinet doors and a deluge of mismatched old tupperware comes crashing down onto him. Hoshi lets out a shrill shriek and cowers next to the counter.

“That’s the tupperware cabinet,” Wonwoo offers blithely.

“I knew that,” Hoshi says, scrambling back to his feet. He dusts off his bare knees and squats back down to toil away under the sink.

Wonwoo’s stomach growls. “Good kidnappers feed their hostages,” he says politely. Hoshi ignores him.

Hoshi finishes checking another cabinet in the kitchen and stalks out of the room, throwing a quick “Stay there,” behind his shoulder as he begins to case the rest of the house, weapon drawn. Wonwoo trains his eyes diligently away from Hoshi’s pale, bare ass and wonders if he would wear clothes if Wonwoo offered them. Probably not.

Wonwoo pours himself a bowl of cereal. At this point, he’s fully convinced that Hoshi has maybe, probably lost his mind. Bumped his head on impact or something. But Wonwoo is at a loss as to what he’s supposed to do. Hoshi’s not like, an action-movie alien. If he kicked him out into the street, he’d probably get arrested by the one police officer on the island in three seconds flat with the way he’s waving around his weird little gun. It would be like sending someone to their death, even though the only thing to be afraid of on this island is the church ladies.

Wonwoo’s looking for milk in the cramped fridge when Hoshi makes his way back into the kitchen and checks the windows again, drawing the blinds tight after he’s done.

“What’s that?” Hoshi says, gesturing at the fridge with his gun.

“Fridge,” Wonwoo says simply. Explaining things does nothing to put Hoshi at ease, so he just lets himself be pushed aside with one clammy hand. Wonwoo looks on miserably as he starts digging through the fridge without abandon.

Wonwoo trails back to the table, tragically milkless, to watch Hoshi reorganize the fridge with a pattern only he knows. He takes a bite of his dry cereal and tries his hardest to ground himself back in some semblance of reality. Hoshi is not from here. Hoshi believes he is unsafe. Hoshi needs to check if the stew in the fridge is going to kill him. None of this effects Wonwoo’s grasp on reality.

Hoshi sits down at the table across from Wonwoo with his back straight and his gun on the table. Wonwoo flinches despite himself. “This is to keep us both safe,” Hoshi reminds him. “They could be here at any time. If they’re coming, it won’t take them longer than a few hours.”

Wonwoo swallows around a sharp mouthful of unmilked cereal. “Who are they?”

“From my unit, probably,” Hoshi says. He keeps his chin up.

“Unit of what? The military?”

“I’m hoping they just won’t be able to find us,” Hoshi says, without answering the question. “I broke the tracker, so.”

“Right, the tracker,” Wonwoo repeats inanely, and horks down another bite of Froot Loops.

* * *

Three hours later, Wonwoo needs some air. Well, the air doesn’t matter. He just wants to be absolutely anywhere in the world but across the kitchen table from Hoshi in a demented intergalactic staring contest. He gets to his feet and Hoshi startles and rises to his feet, too.

“Where are you going?” Hoshi demands.

“The _bathroom_ ,” Wonwoo snaps, and then he starts towards the hall before Hoshi can respond. To his chagrin, Hoshi catches up to him and grabs his arm.

“I meant it when I said not to move,” Hoshi snaps. “Can’t you just do whatever you have to do out here?”

Wonwoo looks at him, appalled. “No.”

“Well,” Hoshi says, eyes darting from the window to the door. “Make it quick, then.”

Wonwoo gets about ten minutes of peace trying to zone out on the toilet before Hoshi knocks on the door frantically.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yes,” Wonwoo groans back.

“Is this a normal amount of time for a bowel movement? You should come back out,” Hoshi says through the door. “It’s safer if we stick together.”

Wonwoo slides the door open. “Why?" he asks. "Why is it safer?"

Hoshi gapes for a second, and then turns on his heel and grabs Wonwoo’s arm again. “Just is. I’m trained for these kinds of things.”

To Wonwoo’s horror, Hoshi digs a hand inside of his abdomen again and pulls out a small tablet. Wonwoo feels sick again. Hoshi frowns down at the little thing and taps violently. It reminds Wonwoo of when he let his uncle try to use his phone. The thought makes him feel insane.

“You just sit here, okay? Stay–”

“Stay where you can see me.” Wonwoo repeats back. His whole body aches and he still can’t really relax, but he wants Hoshi to go away. Hoshi gives him curt nod and taps something on his tablet again, then goes to check the windows for a third time.

Wonwoo pulls out his phone from his pocket and after a moment of staring blankly at the dark screen, he cues up Infinite Staircase. At least he’ll die doing what he loved.

* * *

The day bleeds into evening like that, with Hoshi patrolling every entrance and exit out of the house, gun in one hand and tablet in the other. As far as alien invasions go, it sucks ass. As the time drags on, Wonwoo’s tenuous sympathy turns into annoyance. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Hoshi has no idea what he’s talking about. Wonwoo keeps trying to ask him things, about who’s coming and why, but Hoshi just gives him vague, inconsequential answers.

On top of it all, Hoshi is still naked and Wonwoo’s got a headache from trying not to look at whatever alien genitals Hoshi’s packing.

Hoshi also keeps filling the silence with all of these weird, invasive questions. When was Wonwoo born. Whether or not he’s ever participated in acts of warfare. His normal resting heart rate. It’s relentless and every question just triggers more questions in Wonwoo’s mind, both of them working each other up into a fever pitch of anxiety before Wonwoo gives up and goes to play dead as far away as he can get from Hoshi without getting yelled at.

Hoshi is obviously terrified. He’s trying to put on a weird brave front for Wonwoo, but it’s having the opposite effect. The longer the day stretches without any alien forces coming to kill him, the more certain Wonwoo that any danger to them is living solely in Hoshi’s head. However, Hoshi’s ineptitude does nothing to diminish the chaotic hostility of Hoshi cycling through the house checking every lock before coming back to the kitchen table to sit there with his finger on the trigger of his gun.

By early evening, Wonwoo is thankfully allowed to flop on the couch once he proves to Hoshi that he’s still within his line of sight. The urgency of the situation has worn thin after so many hours and has left Wonwoo’s body weak and empty. Wonwoo is about 200 points away from beating his all-time staircase record and the rush of winning, usually one of his favorite feelings, is just making his post-adrenaline nausea worse.

Beside the couch, Jinki makes a horrific retching noise and Wonwoo’s attention snaps to him. His suited businessman makes a tragic noise as he falls from the 111th story and Wonwoo lets out a frustrated grunt. At the table, Hoshi calls sharply, “What happened?”

From underneath where he’s thrown his arm over his face to block out this whole stupid day, Wonwoo bites back, “ _Nothing._ ”

Jinki wretches again and Wonwoo sits up with alarm. He swears Jinki looks him right in the eye before opening his mouth to empty the putrid remains of his breakfast onto the ancient rug.

Wonwoo stares at the pile of dessicated dog food at his feet and Jinki stares back at him. Hoshi’s voice startles him when it comes closer than expected, his pale naked body on full display as he inspects the bile with interest.

Hoshi asks, “Are you going to clean that up?”

Something inside of him snaps.

“I’m going to bed,” Wonwoo says abruptly, getting up. It is dark outside now, and that is as good of a reason as any.

“Hey, you can’t—” Hoshi grabs for Wonwoo’s wrist and hot anger burns up through his chest and up his throat. He takes a step towards Hoshi threateningly, looming dangerously close to his face. Hoshi flinches.

“This is _my_ house,” Wonwoo yells. Then, he takes a step back, surprised by himself. It feels cathartic coming out, cutting through the hostile silence that’s built up in the house. Then, emboldened, he spits, “Or am I your _hostage_ now _?”_

Wonwoo yanks his arm out of Hoshi’s grip and draws himself up to his full height. “My uncle just _died_ and you burned down part of this house that I’m supposed to fucking _sell_ and now, you freaked my dog out so bad that he’s _sick_.”

Hoshi’s face goes blank and he takes a step backwards. Wonwoo reaches down and picks Jinki up like a baby from where he’s cowering next to Wonwoo’s legs, even though he’s too big for it. He glares at Hoshi from behind Jinki’s fluffy, shaking body and Hoshi crosses his arms across his rapidly blushing chest.

“So, yeah,” Wonwoo says haltingly, a little of the conviction going out of his voice. He hitches Jinki up in his arms. “We’re going to bed. If the aliens even come to get us, you can tell them we’re upstairs.”

Wonwoo’s gaze slips down to Hoshi’s combative stance and he has to forcibly avert his eyes again. He adds, angrily, “And find some clothes! I’m tired of making eye contact with your _stuff!_ ”

Wonwoo stalks off without waiting for Hoshi’s reaction. Hoshi screams after him, his voice shrill and grating even echoing up the staircase, “There’s _nothing_ down there and you _know_ it!”

Wonwoo slams the door to the bedroom and leans back against the door, releasing his hold on Jinki when he yelps to get down. He exhales.

For a long time Wonwoo had considered himself to be a lonely person. It was sort of his brand, especially in the army. But as the silence sets in around him, he feels truly and honestly alone, in a way he hasn’t felt in forever. He walks slowly over to the bed and crawls on top of the comforter.

In the dark, Jinki gags again. Wonwoo shuts his eyes, tight.

* * *

The next morning Wonwoo wakes up to a Ka-talk from Seungkwan and a sinking feeling in his stomach.

_Homeowner-nim,_ it says, _Has the island eroded to hell yet? Is the house haunted? Call me._

Wonwoo’s thumbs hover over the keyboard. He thinks about what he could possibly say.

_Hi Seungkwan. I actually am a landlord now and I have a new tenant._

No.

_There’s asbestos in the attic and there’s a dirty bathtub in the bedroom and I am being held hostage by an alien._

That won’t work either.

Seungkwan can smell him lying even from across large bodies of water and he’s not ready for that conversation right now. He locks his phone and drops it next to him on the bed with a thunk. Seungkwan will survive being ignored for a day or two; it might even be good for him, honestly. Just until Wonwoo can figure out how to explain what’s going on.

He just woke up but he’s already so fucking tired.

Jinki hops onto the bed and gives him a look before sitting on his legs.

“Please tell me if you have any ideas,” Wonwoo says, fiddling with one of Jinki’s soft ears. Jinki looks about as close to shrugging as a dog can get with such small shoulders. “Yeah, me neither.”

There’s suddenly a loud crash from downstairs, like twenty bowls breaking in unison. It startles him and Jinki, who yelps and hides his face under a corner of the blanket.

“Fuck,” Wonwoo breathes out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck–”

He tosses off the blanket and staggers out of bed, Jinki at his heels. They thunder down the stairs together and slide into the kitchen to find Hoshi standing there, frozen, surrounded by shards of glass and ceramic and wearing a floral-print muumuu.

Wonwoo’s anger from the night before flares right back up, the 12 hours between then and now for naught. He opens his mouth without thinking about what might come out, blindly pissed off and ready for someone to hear about it. Then, he locks eyes with Hoshi.

Hoshi is cowering; there’s no other word for the way he looks back at Wonwoo like he’s expecting to be hit or yelled at and it makes Wonwoo flinch. It douses the heat of his anger like a cold bucket of water, and Wonwoo snaps his mouth shut.

Hoshi straightens up and says, quietly, “I was trying to make food for us.”

“Oh,” Wonwoo breathes out, taking in the scene.

“I’m sorry,” Hoshi says. He’s unnaturally still.

Wonwoo sighs and scrubs a hand across his face. Everything feels out of control. Somehow, he’s the one who feels like a fucking monster.

“Let’s just deal with this.”

Wonwoo carefully steps through the mess to grab a paper bag from under the sink and crouches down to start to picking up the larger pieces of glass. Hoshi joins him on the floor and they mechanically drop each shard in the bag in silence.

They don’t say anything, which Wonwoo imagined might feel like a relief in comparison to the day before, but it just feels weird. Hoshi carefully picks up each shard with two fingers and places it gently in the bag, looking scared to make any noise at all.

Wonwoo carelessly tosses a sharp piece and on its way out of his hand it slices clean across one of his fingers. He hisses as blood wells up from the cut.

“You’re hurt,” Hoshi gasps, grabbing Wonwoo’s hand and pulling it close to his chest. “Here, let me–”

“Don’t–”

“Just let me get some bandages or something, where do you keep that?” He fusses wildly, turning his head around looking for anything that might help.

Wonwoo reclaims his hand uncomfortably and tries, “It’s fine, it’s just a little cut–”

Hoshi keeps talking frantically. “Oh, wow, so that’s blood, huh? Um, here, let’s just–”

“Hoshi,” Wonwoo says sharply. “Stop, please.”

Hoshi looks up at him and his face crumples. He looks so pathetic to Wonwoo, folded in on himself and soft like a newborn baby, still malleable and scared of everything.

“I can’t do anything right,” he whispers.

Wonwoo freezes.

He thinks of himself in bed the night prior, frustrated and alone, failing at yet another thing that he’d set out to do to prove something to people who have learned to expect nothing from him. He knows all about that.

But Hoshi isn’t failing. He’s doing his best. It’s obvious even in the catastrophic disaster scene scattered around him. The mess wouldn’t be as big if Hoshi weren’t trying so hard. Hoshi had been neurotic and crazy yesterday because he was trying to protect him. He could have just left Wonwoo face down in the mud and bolted, but he stayed. He brought him inside and he spent all day yesterday trying to make sure he didn’t die.

Wonwoo looks at Hoshi’s wilting antennae and soft body, and feels a surge of protectiveness. For Hoshi, and in a fainter echo, for himself.

Wonwoo swallows back the emotion crawling up his throat and instead, uses Hoshi’s vice-like grip on his wrist to slide him across the linoleum. It makes a squeaking noise.

Wonwoo gathers Hoshi’s stupid, gummy body in his arms and squeezes him way tighter than he would squeeze a normal human, thinking of a documentary he saw about cows and how they calm down when they get squeezed. It seems to work, Hoshi curling up into his chest and breathing steady.

“Oh,” Hoshi wheezes, soft. The front of Wonwoo’s shirt feels way wetter than it should. He can feel Hoshi’s breath catch against his own chest.

There’s a simple sort of pleasure in being needed that Wonwoo first discovered when he got to the island. The first time he ever truly felt like he had a purpose was in this house, making sure his uncle was comfortable. An extra pillow. Hot broth. Pills on the bedside table. Fresh water in the pitcher. Comforting in their simplicity, and so different than the needs burning holes in Wonwoo’s stomach. To have a clue what he was doing. To stop feeling like a fuck-up. To want something. Anything.

Hoshi just needs a hug. Wonwoo can do that. And maybe, he thinks, as relief floods his own chest at the feeling of Hoshi overly warm and sticky in his arms, Wonwoo needed a hug, too.

Then, Hoshi says in a choked voice, bracketed by his shuddering breath, “I am not having a good time.”

Wonwoo huffs out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, me neither.”

Hoshi wriggles a little until Wonwoo loosens his hold. He scoots backward and folds his legs criss-cross underneath him. He looks down at his lap and wipes at his eyes. “Thank you for being nice. You didn’t have to be.”

“I’m not being nice,” Wonwoo says, uncomfortably. His face heats. “I wasn’t nice before.”

“It wasn’t nice of me to crash onto your house,” Hoshi squirms. He wiggles the toes on one of his feet without meeting Wonwoo’s eyes. “So it’s okay.”

“Technically, it was the chicken’s house,” Wonwoo says. “So it’s okay, too.” He kicks at Hoshi’s foot lightly with his own socked foot. Hoshi sucks in a deep breath, like he needs his lungs totally full to say what he has to say.

“Wonwoo,” Hoshi says. He looks up at Wonwoo from underneath his transluscent lashes. He swallows. Then, he admits, small and miserable: “I don’t think anyone is coming for me.”

His dress is pooled around his knobby, pink knees and his feet are tucked under him and he looks brand new to Wonwoo. This, finally, is what brings Wonwoo back to himself. It’s too many feelings for both of them to be having before noon.

“Well.” Wonwoo says, “Have you ever had coffee before?”

Hoshi’s eyes are shining when he meets Wonwoo’s gaze, his face too close and his breath too sour. “No, never,” he says. Oh, duh.

“I think you’ll hate it,” Wonwoo says, with a smile like a peace offering. “Want to try?”

“Yeah,” Hoshi breathes. He squeezes Wonwoo’s hand and smiles back, tentative but there. “I love hating new things.”

Wonwoo makes the coffee bitter and dark like he did in the army and Hoshi spits it out and then sticks his mouth under the faucet to get the taste out. Hoshi jumps around gagging and Jinki circles his feet trying to help but just gets in the way and Wonwoo smiles privately.

As Hoshi groans about being poisoned, Wonwoo sips his cup of coffee and surveys the kitchen, filled to the brim with the morning sun and somehow much brighter than it has ever been before.

* * *

Hoshi is buried under several blankets on the couch. Since they made peace in the morning, Hoshi has been almost a completely different person. Gone is the paranoia that had set deep inside both of them yesterday, replaced with a burning curiosity that would be annoying if Hoshi didn’t hang off of Wonwoo’s every word with bated breath.

“You did not tell me I could have been sitting here the whole time,” Hoshi complains from beneath a throw blanket. They are discovering all of the soft things in the house. “I was at that hard table for fourteen hours when this was right here.”

“You seemed a little occupied. You followed me to the bathroom,” Wonwoo reminds him. “I don’t think getting you to relax was realistic.”

“I was freaked out! You try being on the run,” Hoshi complains, sinking deeper into the couch. Wonwoo perches next to him. Hoshi reaches out with one of his feet and pokes Wonwoo’s thigh, pinching the skin with his toes, a fascinated look on his face. “Why is your skin harder than mine?”

Wonwoo squirms, batting at Hoshi’s foot. “Probably had it longer?”

“True,” Hoshi says. “Wow. Will I get all leathery like that?”

“I am _not_ leathery,” Wonwoo shoots back, leaning against the cushion behind him. “You should have seen Uncle Jaeduck. He was leathery.”

“Who?”

“My uncle. This is—this was his house.” Wonwoo vaguely recalls screaming at Hoshi about it last night. His face flushes with embarrassment when he remembers his temper tantrum, but Hoshi accepts that answer peacefully, burrowing into the couch with a contented noise.

There’s a knock on the door.

Hoshi throws a blanket over his face and cowers, leaving a little slit for his eyes. “I was wrong, they’re here.” He moans. “Where’s my gun, do you have it? Oh, fuck, they’re really here, fuck–”

“It’s just the mailman,” Wonwoo says, patting the lump of Hoshi that’s closest to him. He can see his hat clearly through the window at the top of the front door. “What kind of murder aliens would knock?”

Well, Wonwoo thought he was the mailman, but when he swings the door open today, the guy that usually delivers the mail is holding a plastic-wrapped loaf and wearing a different colored hat.

“Wonwoo-ssi! I thought I heard a crash last night?” the mailman asks. Hoshi pokes his head around the corner of the wall and eyes the mailman suspiciously.

Nervously, Wonwoo supplies, “Yeah, right? Weeeeeird. It was so weird. Wow.”

Hoshi creeps forward, and Wonwoo turns to see him siding an arm into his dress. Wonwoo tries very hard to communicate with his eyes that this guy is not a threat, and it must work because Hoshi pouts and pulls his arm back out, hands empty.

“I just came over to check things out,” the mailman-turned-bakery delivery guy says. He’s got the build of someone who has been doing manual labor his whole life, solid through the chest and skin browned through long summer days outdoors. Leathery, as Hoshi would put it.

“Have we met properly? I’m Choi Seungcheol.”

“Jeon Wonwoo. Nice to meet you. Don’t you uh, bring the mail?”

“One of my many hats,” Seungcheol says brightly, pointing at his hat today which is a navy blue and embroidered with the words _YEOSEODO ISLAND_ and an official crest. “I’m on city business today.”

“Nice,” Wonwoo says, though he has no idea what city business could mean in a town of 100 people.

Seungcheol bows deeply with the loaf clutched to his chest. He straightens up and nods with a smile, but continues waiting expectantly, looking into the house behind Wonwoo. Hoshi gives a great and disgusting sniff and Wonwoo startles. “Oh, um. This is my– this is Hoshi. Hoshi-yah, come say hi.”

Hoshi uses Wonwoo’s shoulder as leverage to peer over Wonwoo at Seungcheol from his place of exile. In Wonwoo’s ear, his breath hot and vinegary, Hoshi whispers loudly, “How come he’s bigger than you?”

“That’s normal,” Wonwoo mutters defensively.

He steps aside reluctantly. Hoshi pops into place beside him, drawn up to his full height.

Hoshi curtsies. Wonwoo cringes.

Hoshi says, “I’m Hosh-eeeeeeeeee.” On the _eeee_ , he bares his teeth, which has a particularly disturbing effect with him still bent over at the waist. Wonwoo clears his throat, and tugs lightly at the back of Hoshi’s long shift dress to try and get him to straighten up.

Wonwoo says, “Hoshi just came into town,” which is not a lie. Beside him, Hoshi nods excitedly.

When he finally brings himself to look at Seungcheol’s reaction, he is taken aback to see Seungcheol a little misty-eyed. “Oh, wow,” he says, voice watery. “It’s very nice to meet you, Hoshi-ssi.”

He clears his throat and smiles apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t expect to have members of the community in this house, even with Lee Jaeduk and Anh Tony gone.” He says _community_ like he means something by it. Wonwoo nods like he understands and smiles blandly. He doesn’t even know who Tony is.

Seungcheol stops for a second. He looks at the house, and then back at Wonwoo and Hoshi. “I’m glad it was you here with him. He was a special person,” Seungcheol says resolutely. Then, he lifts the loaf. “My roommate made this for you two. It’s called zucchini bread. He’s American.” Seungcheol adds that last bit like it is something that is supposed to be impressive.

“Wow,” Wonwoo says, bowing as he takes it from Seungcheol with a hand at his elbow. “Thank you. We’ll eat it well.”

Seungcheol waves off the formalities. Then, he perks up again. “So you’ll be sticking around then? To fix up the house?”

Hoshi turns to Wonwoo and leans heavily into his side, his whole body pressed up against Wonwoo’s arm. Wonwoo squirms.

There are a lot of questions he’s not ready to answer being asked of him. And now he’s starting to worry that the slimy alien that crash-landed into his chicken coop has imprinted on him. Where do you find the answers to this kind of stuff? Are there _house flipping and alien invasion_ cafes on Naver? Fuck his life.

“Just for a bit,” Wonwoo replies to Seungcheol. He jokes awkwardly, “Know any realtors?”

Seungcheol beams like that was the question he’d been waiting for Wonwoo to ask all day. “Yeah for sure. My partner does basically all the realty on the island,” he says with a puffed up sort of pride. “You know what, why don’t you two come over for dinner on Friday? My roommate always cooks and our harvest from the garden was huge.”

Abort. Wonwoo tries to decline with a polite, “Oh, no—” and is cut off by Hoshi popping forward, his eyes huge. “Dinner? I love dinner!”

“You’ve never _had_ dinner,” Wonwoo hisses. Hoshi looks wounded and Wonwoo, his will softened by the horrors of the last few days, sighs.

Seungcheol, unphased, claps his hands. “ _Lit_ ,” he says, in English. “We’re up on the other hill. Just follow the road, you’ll be able to tell which is us. It’s the aesthetic one.”

"Great," Wonwoo says painfully. He feels like everyone is speaking to him in a different language. Hoshi wraps his arms around Wonwoo’s limp arm and hops up and down three times. He lets out an excitable little squeak and Seungcheol laughs.

“You’re cute together,” he comments lightly, and then turns to look out at the yard as he starts to make his departing greetings. When he catches sight of the wreckage of the coop, he starts to ask, “Hey, what—”

Wonwoo jumps in, an idea coming to him just in time. “A sinkhole!” he says forcefully. Then he coughs, and reigns in his excitement. He wrenches his arm away from Hoshi, who makes an annoyed noise and slinks back into the house without saying goodbye to Seungcheol. “A rogue sinkhole. Opened up last night right under the chicken coop.”

“A sinkhole!” Seungcheol raises his eyebrows. Then he purses his lips out, considering. “Whoa. Cool. Sucks for the chickens though.”

“One survived,” Wonwoo informs him solemnly, relieved that his lie has been accepted. As if on cue, Hoshi returns with the chicken in his arms. Hoshi says, “Their spirits live on in her.”

Against his better judgement, Wonwoo stifles a laugh. Seungcheol nods respectfully and then smiles at Wonwoo. “Okay, well let me know if you need help rebuilding. I’m good for that stuff. And we’ll see you at half past seven for dinner on Friday!”

“Half past seven,” Hoshi echoes brightly. “19:30! I love dinner!”

“That’s the spirit,” Seungcheol says, saluting him. “See you then.”

When Wonwoo closes the door, he feels all of the adrenaline flood from his body and he slumps against the heavy wood.

“Oh,” Hoshi says quietly, looming close to Wonwoo’s face. Wonwoo tilts his head to look at him.

Hoshi sways backward. “I should have asked first. If we could go to Dinner.”

Wonwoo closes his eyes for a moment, and then pushes himself back to standing. He shakes his head and quirks up his lips.

“We should make friends,” Wonwoo says and shrugs. He tries for casual when he says, “Since we’re sticking around.”

“Staying a while,” Hoshi nods excitedly, perking right back up. His antennae slide back out and stand at attention. It’s cute.

None of this makes any sense, that Hoshi wants to stay here with him or that Wonwoo, somehow, wants Hoshi to stay, too. But the more that he thinks about it, the more he realizes that not much has ever made sense to him before. At least now he can admit it. And at the very least, it’s obvious now that he and Hoshi are on the same side.

It’s okay. It’s actually not all that bad. It could even be good.

* * *

“So,” Wonwoo says, standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips. He’s never been in charge before, but Hoshi’s sitting on the couch expectantly and waiting for direction, so Wonwoo is doing an impersonation of someone with a clue. “My plan is like, to make it look less like someone died here.”

Hoshi looks around with interest. “Is there a protocol for that? Or what do you guys call them? An exorcism?”

Wonwoo wishes. "Uh, no," he says. "We just have to throw out a bunch of stuff, I think. Maybe we can paint the walls?"

Wonwoo looks searchingly at the floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the room, the piles and piles of shoes at the doorway that look nothing like anything he’s ever seen his uncle wear, the dust caked heavily onto the windowsills. Not for the first time, he thinks of how long Uncle Jaeduk spent alone and as good as dead and feels like shit about it.

“Fuck. I don’t know.”

Without warning, Hoshi slams his body into Wonwoo’s and wriggles around and Wonwoo snaps out of it, putting his palm against Hoshi’s forehead and pushing him backwards. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Hugging you?” Hoshi says. “Your uncle died. I looked it up last night. _Earf_ says–”

“You’re doing it wrong,” Wonwoo grunts. “You’re supposed to stay still.”

He gingerly wraps an arm around Hoshi’s waist and squeezes. It feels like a stress ball. Hoshi relaxes into his grip immediately and sighs, big and dramatic. His arm comes up and wraps around Wonwoo’s neck, the same arm that Wonwoo saw him cut off. Life is weird.

Wonwoo detaches them, patting Hoshi awkwardly on the shoulder after he steps back. “Thanks.”

He searches for something to say and settles on the little tablet still in Hoshi’s grip that he recognizes from their first awful day together. “What is that, anyway?”

Hoshi turns the tablet towards Wonwoo and on the screen is a vintage-style 8-bit revolving globe with the word _EARF_ emblazoned over it.

“Earf?”

Hoshi gives him a look like he doesn’t have time for someone this stupid. “Where do you think we are?”

Wonwoo’s smile inches onto his face. He nods. “Oh, right.”

Hoshi’s ears pink up a little and he averts his eyes. He scuttles toward the nearest pile of random stuff, what looks like years of unfinished knitting. Wonwoo follows him, listless.

Hoshi picks up a square of pink knitwear delicately between two fingers and asks, “So, is your dead uncle in here?”

Wonwoo barks out a laugh. He’s startled by the sound and the feeling, the chaos of his mind changing character from helpless to hilarity in an instant.

He says, ominously, “Maybe,” and Hoshi makes a disgusted face and drops it.

The way to do it is just to do it, Wonwoo decides, and gleefully topples the pile altogether. Hoshi claps his sticky little hands together and cackles with his whole face, his rounded teeth and huge mouth on display and Wonwoo, for lack of anything better to do, smiles right back.

It’s nearing sunset by the time they make it out of the living room, dusty but accomplished. Wonwoo feels like he should be tired, but they’re kind of on a roll. He and Hoshi are taking a break at the kitchen table, gnawing at freezer-burned Melona bars bathed in the golden late-afternoon sun.

“These taste like how being solid feels,” Hoshi says, sticking his tongue out. “My brain hurts.”

“It’s just frozen,” Wonwoo says lazily, scrolling through his phone. Then, considering, he looks up and says, “If you microwave it, it’ll go liquid.”

Hoshi pouts while he thinks about it, and then shrugs and goes back to gnawing at the popsicle with his blunt back molars like a wild animal. Wonwoo snorts.

Above his latest round of Infinite Staircase, a message from his mom drops down. _Hi. How is everything? It’s very hot today on Yeoseodo. I checked the weather. Make sure if you run the fan at night to close the window. No need to ..._

The preview cuts off there and Wonwoo swipes the notification away. He locks his phone.

“Wanna do one more room today?” Wonwoo asks. “Also, you don’t eat the stick.”

Hoshi freezes, eyes wide, and then extracts the stick slowly from where he’s halfway into pushing it down his throat, coughing a little. When he recovers, he says, “Sure, why not?”

A piece of the popsicle falls onto Hoshi’s lap to join the rest of the stains on the dress, which looks stiff and dirty. “Oh no,” Wonwoo says. “Your dress.”

“Don’t worry,” Hoshi says. “There’s way more where that came from.”

Wonwoo realizes once they jiggle the door open that he’s never been in this room. He thought it was a guest room, but there’s a dress form in the corner draped with a pink feather boa and a small acrylic stand strewn with earrings that point to a more permanent resident. “Weird.”

“Who lived here?” Hoshi asks, rummaging in the closet. He pulls out a sequined dress and holds it up to the weak light streaming through the windows until it makes glowing spots dance in a pattern around the room. “They seem cool.”

Wonwoo says, “My mom said my uncle always lived alone.”

He opens one of the drawers of the vanity pushed against one wall and there’s a random assortment of makeup inside. Some lipsticks, a loose powder, some other tubes of stuff that Wonwoo would be hard-pressed to identity. “But Seungcheol said someone named Tony used to live here. Is that a girl name?”

“What’s a girl?” Hoshi asks.

“Uh,” Wonwoo says. He looks at Hoshi, who is busy draping an elegant fur shawl over his shoulders. “Doesn’t really matter.”

“There’s nothing to throw away in here,” Hoshi says, stepping fully into the closet to stand between the layers of clothing. He pokes his head through and blinks owlishly at Wonwoo. “None of this stuff seems dead.”

Wonwoo agrees, but that’s what makes it ominous. Whoever Tony was, it’s clear from the way Seungcheol talked about them that they’re as dead as Uncle Jaeduk. The room feels like a time capsule, like Tony walked out one day without realizing that they’d never be back. He opens the second drawer on the vanity and finds a mess of papers, haphazardly shoved in.

Wonwoo lifts one up and flips it front and back. In the other corner where Hoshi is rummaging, something makes an unmistakable breaking noise. Hoshi’s voice pipes up in an aborted explanation, but Wonwoo cuts him off absently and says, “If I didn’t see it, it didn’t happen,” while he starts scanning the contents of the page.

At the top, it reads, _Patient: Ahn Seungho_ and then _Specimen Number: 123273_ , dated from March 1996, only a few months before Wonwoo was born. The chart underneath is a jumble of letters and numbers that Wonwoo can’t really decipher. He sets it aside.

Underneath is a slip of paper torn from a notebook, and Wonwoo picks it up delicately. It has handwriting on it and for some reason, that makes holding it feel more invasive than anything else that he’s snooped through yet.

“What’s that?” Hoshi pops up out of nowhere and snatches it from his hand. He brings it very close to his shiny face.

Wonwoo snaps instinctively, “Be careful.”

Hoshi is taken aback and readjusts his grip to a more gentle hold. Wonwoo is surprised at himself, too. He tries again, in a softer tone. “It’s old. So.”

The house is very quiet now that the two of them are not filling it with banging and cackling. Wonwoo suddenly gets the feeling like he’s intruding, not just in the room, but in the whole house. It feels just as alien as Hoshi’s ship in the yard. He opens his mouth to tell Hoshi to just put it away, when Hoshi starts to read it out loud to himself in a quick, hushed mutter.

_Honey,_

_I know that all I’m good at saying out loud is the bad stuff. Loud with my anger and silent on everything else. It is too embarrassing to say how I feel out loud, so I’m trying to write. Corny, right? Look what you’ve made of me._

_When I yell, please know it is because I am afraid. We are different in this way, I think. I would give everything up a thousand times over for one day in our life together. I’m sorry for saying it like I have regrets. I don’t. My only regret is that I wish the way I loved you lived further away from how scared I am of losing you._

_Sweet Tony, let’s not fight anymore. I am a man who has everything I want in life. It is time that I stop making up things to be upset about, huh? All of my days with you are beyond what my lacking self had the imagination to dream. Let’s live every day happily._

Hoshi looks up innocently and holds out the paper to him. Wonwoo swallows the dryness in his throat and takes it with both hands.

Unmistakably, it is written by Lee Jaeduk. It’s the same scrawl as the grocery lists still pinned one on top of the other on the fridge and although notably shakier, the same as the original copy of the will that bequeathed Wonwoo everything he owned in a single sentence.

“That’s nice,” Hoshi says simply. “Someone loved Tony a lot.”

Hoshi is closer than Wonwoo realized. He wraps a clammy hand around Wonwoo’s forearm and steps close enough to press the lines of their bodies together. Mortifyingly, the gesture makes tears burn behind Wonwoo’s eyes.

A man who had everything he wanted in life. This dusty old house and Sweet Tony.

“Wonwoo-yah,” Hoshi says in a small, sweet voice. He tugs gently on the sleeve of Wonwoo’s t-shirt until he looks over at him.

Wonwoo blinks a few times before he replies, “Yeah?”

Then, Hoshi opens his mouth on a yawn that stretches his jaw to a terrifying width and sends a wash of hot, acrid air across Wonwoo’s face. Wonwoo gags involuntarily and Hoshi grins. “I’m tired now. Can we sit on the couch again?”

“Your breath stinks so bad,” Wonwoo says in reply, clearing the emotion from his throat. But nonetheless, he puts the papers back and closes the drawer with one hand.

Hoshi herds him towards the door, but Wonwoo stops them just shy of the exit for a moment. He looks over his shoulder at this room with all of its questions and even more of its answers. Hoshi reaches up and flicks off the light without pause for Wonwoo’s existential crisis.

Wonwoo says, offended, “Hey!”

In response, Hoshi drops his weight until he’s all but hanging from Wonwoo’s arm like a giant sloth. “Time to go all horizontal, bony.”

Well, he can’t argue with that. Wonwoo has had plenty of existential crises this week; he guesses there’s no harm in this one waiting just a bit longer.

Wonwoo half-drags Hoshi over the threshold and into the dim dusk-lit hallway, Hoshi’s incessant whining about gravity, his bones, and the uncivilized water-to-nitrogen ratio in the atmosphere wrapping around him like an absurdist safety blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: we have art now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [alien hoshi in a strawberry dress with his fake bf ](https://twitter.com/vernonnotvernon/status/1296214622601482245?s=20)


	3. melting

On Friday, Wonwoo wakes abruptly to a low voice growling _dinnerdinnerdinner_ like an evil chant in his ear.

His eyes snap open. This is the second out of the last four days that he’s woken up like this, with Hoshi’s face looming over him, breath heating his face. Hoshi grins.

Wonwoo exhales and throws an arm over his eyes. “I thought I locked the door.”

Hoshi sits at the end of the bed. “You’ve been asleep for so long and I have so many things to tell you. Why do you sleep so much? Did you know that Jinki-nim has a brother?”

“Jinki-nim,” Wonwoo repeats. He reluctantly scoots up in bed and Hoshi takes that as invitation to scramble in with him. It was not.

“It’s only polite,” Hoshi says and rolls his eyes. Hoshi shoves Wonwoo’s phone in his face. “Look!”

Wonwoo groans, but takes the phone to keep him from escalating in volume. On the screen, a Youtube video called _080525 SHINEE DEBUT STAGE REPLAY LIVE_ is paused at 1 minute and 23 seconds. Hoshi reaches over him and presses play.

_Replay_ blasts out at full volume and Hoshi sings along word for word. When one of the dancing boys comes to the front, Hoshi pokes at the screen again excitedly. “There he is! Human Jinki.”

“Is that who he’s named after?” Wonwoo asks, rubbing at his eyes.

Every day, Hoshi has urgently kept Wonwoo up to date with news of his new favorite Earf thing. Tuesday was sweating, after they hauled the remains of the chicken wire from the crash site under the afternoon sun (“ _Why didn’t you tell me you can make your own juice?”_ ). Wednesday was the ancient printer in his uncle’s home office, which Hoshi and Jinki the dog were equally entranced by, their heads moving in cadence with the jet ink cartridge as it painted an empty sheet with a picture of an egg.

Today, just after sunrise: SHINee.

“Wait, how did you unlock my phone?” Wonwoo says when Hoshi doesn’t respond, too wrapped up in the tiny performance on screen.

Hoshi shrugs without taking his eyes off the screen. “I just borrowed your face.”

Wonwoo doesn’t want to know what that means, so he settles back against the headboard and the two of them watch the rest of the video quietly. It’s nice.

Wonwoo has been thinking that a lot. That it’s been nice having Hoshi around, even though he breaks everything and doesn’t know nearly as much about being a human as he thinks he does. The weirdest part about everything that’s happened in the last week is how _not_ weird it is to cohabitate with an alien.

Hoshi scoots further down in the bed until his chin is pressed up against his chest and then his head falls heavily onto Wonwoo’s shoulder. His antennae tickle Wonwoo’s chin, but he allows it. They have another long day ahead of them, and Wonwoo is learning to take moments of peace as they come.

The video comes to an end and Hoshi sighs dreamily. Then he looks suspiciously at Wonwoo out of the corner of his eye, and Wonwoo looks back at him just as suspiciously.

“Do we have to do more ‘stuff’ today?”

“You’re a free... being,” Wonwoo says and shrugs. “If you want a day off, you can do whatever you want. Hang out with Sylvia in the coop hole.”

Hoshi cranes his neck to give Wonwoo a weird look. “It’ll only be fun not doing stuff if we _both_ don’t do stuff.”

“What? It’s not like I’m _fun_ ,” Wonwoo laughs. Wonwoo has had a lifetime to come to terms with the fact that he’s a little boring and that’s okay.

Hoshi looks confused. “We’ve been having fun this whole time.”

Wonwoo pauses.

He considers the way the days have flown by in a whirr of sunlight and increasingly terrifying practical joke warfare; how by evening, his throat feels hoarse from how he spends all day laughing and shouting; and that he’s not tired at all, not really, despite the hours of work and play that would usually exhaust him.

They have been having fun this whole time. Huh.

Wonwoo nods. He stretches, and then flops back with a sigh. “I guess we can take a break today. Before Dinner.”

“Before Dinner!” Hoshi says enthusiastically. Hoshi gives him a thumbs up, and Wonwoo grabs his thumb and shakes it with a grin. Hoshi’s eyes widen. “So, what do you think we’re having? Borscht? Century eggs? Quiche Lorraine?”

“What? Probably just meat and stuff.” Wonwoo rubs sleep from his eyes and yawns. “What time is dinner again?”

“In eleven hours and forty-five minutes,” Hoshi answers. “I have been reading about Dinner all night. I personally think I am a perfect candidate.”

“Um.” Wonwoo looks at Hoshi appraisingly, as if he didn’t know that Hoshi used to be sludge. He’s not stupid enough to ignore that Hoshi is cute, in the way a water balloon looks sort of cute before it pops. The dress he’s wearing today even makes him look like he has color on his face. His hair is a little weird but they can fix that.

With his free hand, Hoshi digs a finger into his nose as far as it can go with a blissed-out look on his face.

Wonwoo stares with sick interest. “Wow. How far up can you get?”

Hoshi pulls his finger out of his nose and marks the spot with his thumb, peering at the line. “Second knuckle?”

“Pretty nasty,” Wonwoo says flatly. Then, with some alarm, “Fuck. We have to learn manners before dinner.”

Hoshi frowns and insists, “I have manners.” With the same finger that was up his nose, he points towards the dog. “Jinki-nim, remember?”

“We’re going to start with cereal,” Wonwoo says. He eyes Hoshi from across the table in the kitchen. “It’s like cookie soup.”

“Yum,” Hoshi hums, and his face contorts with the length of the grin Hoshi pulls. Then, he pouts. “Wait, do you have anything to keep my dress from getting dirty?”

Wonwoo looks at Hoshi warily. “Cereal shouldn’t be messy."

“A challenge,” Hoshi says with a little smirk, raising his eyebrows. “I love it. Let’s go crazy.”

“Not crazy, just cereal,” Wonwoo says, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet and pouring a healthy serving. He grabs the smallest spoon he can find, hoping to curb some of Hoshi’s instincts, and sets the bowl in front of him at the table and sits down.

“Show me how you would eat this,” Wonwoo says.

Hoshi nods and to Wonwoo’s mounting horror, forgoes the spoon in favor of just picking up the bowl and bringing it to his mouth. Milk sloshes over the side of the bowl and drips down his face. There’s a brief gurgling noise.

“Nice try, but no,” Wonwoo says, grabbing Hoshi by the wrist and forcing him to put the bowl down. He picks up a spoon and waves it in Hoshi’s face. “Don’t you have tools on your civilized planet?”

“Why would I need something hard to get something soft in my mouth? Stupid.”

Hoshi grabs the spoon with a fist, then jabs it into the cereal. One single brightly-colored ring manages to cling onto the spoon. Hoshi frowns. “So many steps,” he mutters as he brings the spoon to pass between his lips. He makes a gross slurping noise and sucks the single Froot Loop into his mouth.

Hoshi screws up his face and then starts to shake his head up and down rapidly, his teeth clacking together in his slack jaw. His face flops around with the force he’s shaking his head.

Wonwoo has to laugh. It only gets funnier as the seconds pass, and he bowls over with the force of it. Hoshi starts to chuckle too, though Wonwoo isn’t sure he knows why he’s laughing. Hoshi’s laugh is loud and goofy and it does nothing to help Wonwoo regain control over his emotions.

Wonwoo tosses a Froot Loop into his mouth and imitates Hoshi, vibrating his jaw. It doesn’t even work but it just makes them both laugh harder.

“That’s way better than how I do it,” Wonwoo says, still laughing. “But if you do that at dinner they might call the cops. Well, I guess Choi Seungcheol is the police, anyway.”

Hoshi looks slightly horrified. “Show me how to do it, then. I can’t embarrass us at _Dinner_.” He says dinner like a Christian grandmother says God.

Wonwoo pushes up his glasses with his middle finger and stares Hoshi down. Hoshi mimes pushing up a pair of glasses he is not wearing and salutes.

“Humans are embarrassing. It’ll probably be okay,” Wonwoo concedes. He squints at Hoshi. He’s never taught anyone to do anything except play League, like once. Wonwoo’s not sure he’s even qualified to tell Hoshi how to a human. But Hoshi has milk streaming down his chin and into his lap like a baby, so there’s probably only going up from here. “I guess it can’t hurt to learn a little.”

Wonwoo palms the back of his neck and looks searchingly out at the kitchen, like it might tell him something. “Here, watch me.”

He pulls the bowl over and grabs the spoon out of Hoshi’s hand, then eats a spoonful like he has since he was like five.

“ _Oh,_ ” Hoshi says. “You use the medial and lateral pterygoid at the same time. Got it.”

He pulls the bowl back to himself and manages to get a spoonful in his mouth perfectly, then looks back up at Wonwoo like he’s accepting an award.

“Nice,” Wonwoo says, giving Hoshi a thumbs up. Hoshi reaches out and wraps his fingers around Wonwoo’s thumb, and then shakes their hands together rapidly.

Two successful bowls of cereal later, Jinki makes it clear that he would like to go for a walk, thanks.

They’re halfway down the front path, Jinki stopping to smell nearly every blade of grass on the way, when something extremely important hits Wonwoo, more pressing than how to bow and how to use chopsticks. He stops dead in his tracks.

“Did you smell something too?” Hoshi asks.

“What are we?” Wonwoo replies, then doubles back, his face heating. “Like. To other people.”

Hoshi whistles. “Big questions. I’ve read that on Earf, the perception of self is so fickle–”

“No, no,” Wonwoo says, panic rising like bile in his throat. Jinki looks between them, confused; he’s usually the one holding them up. “Like tonight at dinner, what do we say? We’re friends? Roommates?”

“You’re the expert here. C’mon,” Hoshi takes Wonwoo by the hand and forces him to start walking again. Wonwoo looks down at their clasped hands and experiences the uncomfortable sensation of being hit over the head with the most obvious answer.

“Oh, shit. They’re definitely going to think we’re dating.”

“Cool!” Hoshi says. “As long as they don’t think I’m an alien we’re fine, right?”

“Um.”

It’s definitely the easiest path forward. Wonwoo knows that, and that’s what freaks him out. How is it that the easiest lie he can tell these people is that he’s dating the extraterrestrial goo monster that lives in his house now? They wouldn’t even have to change anything, really. They already hold hands and joke around and whatever other stupid things couples do. Hoshi tried to lick his face yesterday. Wonwoo feels a little faint.

Hoshi looks at him, confused. “What’s the problem here? Are you worried that they’re going to ask us questions? I ask you questions all the time, do you hate that?”

Wonwoo closes his eyes for a second and wonders how exactly to say this right the first time. Deliberately, he says, “They are going to think we’re in a romantic relationship and we’re not.”

“Yeah, duh. It’s like a covert op.” Hoshi pouts a little and reaches up to run his thumb over Wonwoo’s brow like he’s painting over his frown. “Don’t worry so much, it makes you look ugly.”

"You’re the ugly one," Wonwoo gripes, trailing behind Hoshi down the front walk.

* * *

The house on the hill is, as advertised, the aesthetic one.

Hoshi found a new dress for dinner, long and mustard-colored, a light abstract geometric pattern zigzagging along the skirt. The walk takes longer than it would have otherwise because Hoshi has to stop and point out things that he recognizes from his tablet. Plant varietals, the influences on the architecture, the sort of rock that the island is made of. It is nice, actually. It’s all new information to Wonwoo and they aren’t in any sort of hurry. Wonwoo realizes now that he’s out how little of the island he’s seen since arriving.

He certainly hasn’t seen Seungcheol’s house on the hill, which is starkly different than the haunted old house Wonwoo owns. The path up to the one-level cottage is dotted with a quaint stone pathway and strung with string lights just starting to twinkle in the summer dusk. Wonwoo lifts his chin to look up at them against the deep blue of the sky, the brightest stars blinking into existence in the distance.

“Welcome to our home!” a high, boisterous voice calls from the top of the path. At the door, a beautifully tailored man stands waving enthusiastically. His long, auburn hair is tied at the nape of his neck in a neat ponytail, and he’s wearing a very clean, very white button down and tan slacks cuffed precisely to the ankle.

Hoshi snatches Wonwoo’s hand, squeezing very hard before dropping into a full 90 degree bow at the waist, stopping them in their tracks. He barks in a loud, carrying voice, “Hello! We’re Wonwoo and Hoshi!”

“Hi Wonwoo and Hoshi,” the man laughs, waving them up. Hoshi straightens up mechanically and beams brightly at Wonwoo, looking at him expectantly.

“... good job,” Wonwoo grunts. He wrenches his hand out of Hoshi’s grip, but he guides them up the rest of the path with a touch to the soft skin of Hoshi’s exposed shoulder.

The man at the door is called Jeonghan, Seungcheol’s partner and self-described island business mogul. Jeonghan laughs it off with a tinkling cackle and elegant wave of his hand, but Wonwoo gets the sense that he’s very serious about it. Jeonghan is enamored with Hoshi’s _look_. He keeps saying things like, it’s so _high-fashion_ and he called the weird, light color of Hoshi’s eyebrows _editorial_. Hoshi nods so delightedly that his teeth clack together with the force and then looks over at Wonwoo with a smug look on his face.

Jeonghan swans them through their beautifully curated cottage, pointing out each of the features like he’s selling it. They breeze into the kitchen and Jeonghan calls, “Jisoo-yah, our guests.”

At the stove, a thin, neat man with a kind face turns to them, wiping his hands on his pink, plaid apron. “Heyyyyy,” he says. Wonwoo guesses this is Jisoo, their roommate. And then Jeonghan leans in and kisses him on the cheek. So, maybe not.

Hoshi chirps, “Hi, I’m Hoshi.”

“Cool name,” Jisoo says. “I’m Jisoo. Or Josh.”

Jeonghan says, like they should be impressed, “Josh is American.”

“I’m not,” Hoshi says cheerfully, and Wonwoo tenses up with an excuse on his tongue—but then Jeonghan and Jisoo laugh and turn to each other, apparently delighted by them. Everyone seems to be charmed enough by Hoshi to let some of his most blatant eccentricities slide right by.

“That’s probably for the best,” Jisoo says kindly. He turns back to the stove and lifts the lid on one of the pots to give it a stir. To them, he says, “I just made a lot of stuff. We haven’t had visitors our age in forever, so Jeonghan wanted us to go all out. You two like pork bone stew, right?”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Wonwoo says, kind of touched even though there’s no way Jisoo could have known that. Beside him, Hoshi mutters just for Wonwoo, “More bones?”

Wonwoo, as he’s been noticing happening more and more lately, can’t help but laugh. It feels funny that this is going well, but it is. Wonwoo trails behind Hoshi as Jeonghan leads them out into the yard, the two of them beautifully silhouetted in golden light like a scene from someone else’s stolen life.

After a few meters, Hoshi darts back to Wonwoo. Somehow, he’s already sweating. He leans in and whispers in a panic, “He said we’re dining _al freshco._ What the hell is that? We didn’t practice _al freshco_.”

“Is that when you eat with your hands?” Wonwoo pulls out his phone to search the term. Hoshi bounces nervously next to him.

“Why don’t you know?” Hoshi whines. “I’m gonna look dumb. We practiced chopsticks for so long and now everything’s _al freshco_?”

“That’s Earf for you,” Wonwoo shrugs.

As it turns out, _Al fresco_ means outside. Wonwoo thinks it’s pretty funny how Jeonghan has a fancy, useless word for everything. The archways in the house are _art deco_ and their decor is _mid-century modern meets agriculture chic_ and eating in the backyard is _al fresco_. Sure, why not.

The spread that Josh and Seungcheol laid out is quite impressive, and Wonwoo and Hoshi watch with fascination as Jeonghan photographs the table from about fifty different angles before they were allowed to sit down, because _the light is dying_.

( Hoshi asks, “Is your sun supernova-ing?”

“No,” Wonwoo answers. “Uh. I hope not. We’d get toasted.”

“Like pork skins,” Hoshi agrees. )

Once they are allowed to eat, though—it really is delicious.

They practiced enough that Hoshi has reached the part of his personal evolution where he really enjoys eating, but isn’t quite as good at it as either of them would like. The soup Joshua prepared is thick and rich and perfect and Hoshi is slurping it like he’s been without water for years.

“Hey,” Wonwoo whispers in Hoshi’s ear, “Slurp much?”

Hoshi inclines his head towards Wonwoo’s with his cheeks bulging. There’s broth running down his chin and he looks ridiculous. Wonwoo picks up a cloth napkin from the table and uses it to wipe around Hoshi’s mouth with a suffering sigh.

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Jeonghan says. “Why don’t either of you ever take care of me like that?” He slaps Joshua and Seungcheol on each knee and then keeps his hands below the table. Wonwoo averts his eyes.

“What do you think?” Wonwoo asks Hoshi. “Even though it’s bony.”

Hoshi lets out a trilling noise and holds up one thumb. Wonwoo smiles despite himself and grabs Hoshi’s thumb and shakes it.

Hoshi finesses their hands until their fingers are linked.

With most people’s hands under the table, the dinner somehow progresses. Jeonghan relinquishes his vice-like grip on Seungcheol’s knee and takes dainty sips of the soup. Joshua keeps making lettuce wraps and shoving them across the table until Seungcheol says, “Yah, make some for yourself!”

There’s something stressful about their dynamic, but Wonwoo has enough on his plate with Hoshi’s sweaty little hand clutching his fingers so hard they might break. “Relax. You’re doing good,” Wonwoo whispers in Hoshi’s ear. “Very dinnerlike.”

Hoshi exhales and finally releases his grip. “What’s the red stuff?” he asks, pointing at a dish of kimchi.

“Kimchi,” Wonwoo says. “Do you want some?”

Hoshi nods and opens his mouth.

Jeonghan coos as Wonwoo rolls his eyes and drops a small piece of cabbage in Hoshi’s mouth. Instantly, Hoshi’s face turns red and his eyes bug out a little.

As Jeonghan turns to say something to Seungcheol, Hoshi leans up and pulls Wonwoo closer to his mouth and whisper-screams, “It bit me!”

There’s sweat forming at Hoshi’s temples and he keeps inhaling every time he chews and Wonwoo feels like he has to bite his teeth off to keep himself from laughing at Hoshi’s face, the panic in his eyes. “It’s good but it _hurts,”_ Hoshi whines to Wonwoo in a whisper. “Why would Earf make food that hurts?”

“Just wait until you get meat sweats,” Wonwoo says. “Real mood-killer.”

“What’s that? I want _that_ ,” Hoshi pants. “Sweating is my second favorite part of having a body.”

Wonwoo laughs nervously and Jeonghan laughs like a witch.

“Oh, totally same,” Jeonghan says with a wink, like he and Hoshi are having a moment. Josh shoves at Jeonghan’s shoulder, rolling his eyes, and Jeonghan replies to him with a flirty little, “ _Whaaat?_ ”

Seungcheol stands suddenly. “Anyone else want a beer?”

“Yes, sir,” Hoshi says solemnly with a bow so low his nose brushes the table. Wonwoo yanks him back up and Jeonghan giggles.

“So, how long have you guys been together?” he asks knowingly.

Hoshi looks at Wonwoo and nods; they rehearsed this answer beforehand. “Six months! Which is a long time but not long enough that we would know everything about each other.”

Jeonghan hums. “Ah, the honeymoon stage. I miss it.”

Seungcheol comes back with a Hite in a glass bottle and hands it over to Hoshi. “You need a bottle opener?” Seungcheol asks.

“Nah,” Hoshi says. “I got this.” He sticks the bottle into his mouth and puts the cap behind his teeth. At once the whole table erupts, Wonwoo to pull the bottle out of his mouth, Jeonghan and Joshua to lean forward in excitement as Seungcheol whoops and claps. Before Wonwoo can wrench the bottle out of Hoshi’s mouth, there’s a loud hiss and a huge plume of foam shoots down Hoshi’s throat. He gurgles, coughs, and then spits out the cap onto the table and cackles.

Wonwoo is stunned for a moment. But all it takes is one look at Hoshi’s screwed up face to break him, Wonwoo collapsing into a big, loud laugh. The sound surprises him and Hoshi looks absolutely delighted to have prompted it, face wet with sauce and beer and smile so goofy and bright.

Hoshi cheers, “This tastes bad!” and clinks his beer bottle with his own water glass, looking to Wonwoo for his reaction. Wonwoo loses it again, covering his face. It’s becoming clear that Hoshi isn’t really weird because he’s an alien, he’s weird because he’s Hoshi. And Wonwoo, for his part, finds that he likes it more than he should.

Night has fallen heavily on Yeoseodo, the streak of the milky way visible above them, even with the backyard bathed in soft yellow string lights. Joshua sets out sweet rice cake from the grandmother at the bottom of the hill and pours them all hot barley tea to ease their stomachs after the heavy meal.

“Hoshi-yah,” Jeonghan calls from where he’s leaning heavily into Seungcheol. “That’s Tony-ssi’s dress, right?”

“I got it from the closet,” he says. He glances at Wonwoo for confirmation and Wonwoo nods, taking a bite of rice cake. He’s been intentionally holding the things that he found in Tony’s room at arms length in his mind, scared of what he might realize and not sure why.

“It is,” Seungcheol confirms. “I think I remember it. I was young when Tony passed, but.”

“Tony-hyung always tried to get Uncle Jaeduk to try them on,” Seungcheol continues, and Wonwoo’s gaze snaps up at the masculine honorific. “Whenever I’d compliment him, hyung would go, _see, honey, Cheollie understands fashion_.”

“That’s so cute.” Josh sips on his tea and looks compassionate.

Jeonghan, clearly moved, slips his hand through the button of Seungcheol’s shirt and puts his palm on his heart. “I’m so glad you had such strong queer role models from an early age.”

Wonwoo feels hollowed out.

He thinks about the frail, dying man that he knew so briefly, about the _pity_ that he felt as he wandered through his uncle’s big house, thought about him living there lonely and alone for his whole miserable life. He thinks of the backhanded anecdotes that his mother used to tell about her brother while he was growing up, about how she hoped for all his selfishness that he could at least be happy. He thinks, then, of the man whose love was so big in his heart that he couldn’t even say it out loud. _I am a man who has everything I want in life._

Wonwoo thinks of how much he must have been holding back even while dying, for some twisted consideration of Wonwoo’s sake. He feels a lot of things, but mostly, he feels very, unplacably sad.

“It was so different when he was, you know,” Seungcheol sounds very far away. “Really himself. And I really wish everyone had gotten to meet Tony. It’s not fair.”

Wonwoo startles back into his body when Hoshi grabs his hand under the table, looking at him searchingly. His grip tightens on Hoshi’s damp, pliable hand and he exhales. Hoshi scoots closer to him, until their thighs press together under the table. Quietly, he asks, “Are you sad?”

Wonwoo looks down at the table so he doesn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes. Hoshi shakes his hand lightly. “Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo clears his throat. He shakes his head. Then, he turns to look at Hoshi. But on second look, Hoshi’s expression isn’t concerned. He doesn’t carry the same kind of judgemental weight about sadness or loneliness or pain as the rest of them do; he’s just asking. Wonwoo, childishly, finds himself wishing that everyone took things at face-value like Hoshi. He’d feel a lot safer telling the truth.

“I am sad,” Wonwoo admits simply, and he feels it resonate in his chest, his throat going tight. He nods. “Yeah. It’s really sad.”

“You should try crying,” Hoshi says. And then, he leans his big head on Wonwoo’s shoulder and closes his eyes. “It feels good.”

Jeonghan, Josh, and Seungcheol all laugh at that, and Hoshi grins from his place on Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo says blithely, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that?” and the conversation takes back off, away from the minefield that Wonwoo has made it his business to unravel.

At the door as they’re saying their extended goodbyes, Seungcheol gives Wonwoo a long hug. He pulls away and looks misty-eyed, but doesn’t say anything more. Josh teaches Hoshi an “American handshake” at his excitable request, although Wonwoo thinks that his and Hoshi’s handshake is cooler.

Jeonghan pulls Wonwoo into a tight hug and holds him at arms length by the shoulders once he’s finished. “I really hope you think about staying. It wasn’t easy to settle here—we had to work hard to become dearly beloved, invaluable members of the Yeoseodo community,” he says seriously. He looks fondly at Josh, and then at Seungcheol.

Cheerfully, he continues, “But now that we’ve made it, I’ll have that status pried from my cold, dead hands. We’ll be able to get you and Hoshi ingratiated to the community in no time.”

“Thanks?” Wonwoo squirms under his grip. Jeonghan laughs, the sound light and tinkling and completely at odds with the intensity of his sentiment.

“Of course, if you _do_ decide to sell the house...” Jeonghan raises his eyebrows pointedly.

Wonwoo nods slowly. “I’ve got your card.”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan smiles, and turns to give Hoshi a quick hug before waving them off down the path.

Hoshi bounces into place beside him, lacing his fingers with Wonwoo. Wonwoo, dazed from spending so much time around boisterous people after weeks of relative silence, doesn’t even bother yanking his hand away. They take off down the dark, stone-lined street in an amiable quiet, Hoshi swinging their hands between them.

“I knew I liked Dinner,” Hoshi says smugly. He looks over at Wonwoo. “I did a good job.”

“You did,” Wonwoo agrees easily. “That was fun.”

The night is balmy, just cool enough to feel refreshing. The hush of the town isn’t as eerie now that he’s starting to know what to listen for: the soft clank of the docked fishing boats, the murmur of old men playing cards in the yards, the hiss of water as dinner is cleared and dishes washed.

The walk up to their hill is short, but pleasant. As they make their way up the path to the house, Hoshi ranks all of the Earf foods that he has tried from first (kimchi) to last (beer), and then he ranks his favorite humans that he’s met so far in the same fashion. Counting off on his fingers, Hoshi says, “Well, you’re my favorite person. Obviously. Then SHINee Taemin and Shua-hyung are tied. Then, Seungcheol-hyung and then Jeonghan-hyung.”

Wonwoo feels his face heat. His heart thumps out of time. “You shouldn’t rank people.”

Hoshi shrugs and grins. “Too late!”

The relief Wonwoo feels at discovering he is still Hoshi’s favorite person uncurls a knot that’s been in his stomach since they got to the house on the hill. What if Hoshi had met other humans and realized Wonwoo is boring as shit and sort of a stick in the mud? But Hoshi seems more than happy to be there with Wonwoo, swinging their clasped hands together in the light of the moon.

Once they get to the house, Wonwoo feels the loss when Hoshi lets go of his hand and steps away. Hoshi points with his thumb over his shoulder at the shed that they’ve hidden his ship in and tucks his other arm behind his back. “Well. That’s my spot.”

“Oh, right,” Wonwoo says. Jinki bounds across the yard and excitably twines his way through Hoshi’s legs, and then, like an afterthought, through Wonwoo’s. “Well, good night.”

Hoshi’s face scrunches up. He looks down at his toes. “Wonwoo-yah. I really like Dinner.”

“That’s good, because it happens every day,” Wonwoo says, bemused. He kicks lightly at the toe of Hoshi’s sandal.

Then, Hoshi looks up with a determined look on his face, throws his arms around Wonwoo’s shoulders and squeezes. It’s so fast that Wonwoo just barely manages to pat Hoshi before he’s gone again. In one quick breath, Hoshi says, “I hope you cry tonight,” and spins around to scuttle off towards the ship.

Wonwoo tucks his hands in his pockets and watches Hoshi until he disappears into the shed. He feels very warm in all of the places that Hoshi touched him. In a much less complicated world, he’d attribute it to an allergic reaction. But in this one, Wonwoo has to deal with the fact that he is developing a haunting, stubborn fondness for the alien that crashlanded into his chicken coop.

“Let’s go to bed, Jinki-nim,” Wonwoo says, leaning down to pat the dog on the head. He heads into the house, stepping out of his shoes. He hangs up his jacket on the hooks in the entryway and dances around the squeaky floorboards in the dim hallway light.

On his way through the house, he stops into the guest room. Tony’s room. It wasn’t so off-base to think of it as a guest room. It bore no markers of ever being a place in use besides the full closet and vanity. The bed sucked compared to the one in the room Wonwoo has been using—he can’t imagine anyone preferring to sleep on it even over a pallet on the floor. And he supposes no one ever did.

It has it’s charm. The house, the island. It wasn’t a bad life that his uncle lived here, by any means. It isn’t a bad life that he’s left for Wonwoo.

Wonwoo closes the door to the room gently, like there’s someone to worry about waking. He retreats up the stairs, to the bedroom that more and more is starting to feel dangerously close to _his_.

* * *

_The ship should not open for them, for their particular biometric status, but Hoshi is smarter than a ship, even a ship made by skilled military astroengineers. It’s easy, in the end, to flow slowly into the pod like some sort of osmosis, slowly and tenderly breaching the membrane one molecule at a time. The guards don’t even notice they’re gone, too consumed by the proceedings of the current trial channelled into their cortex. They’ve almost fully slid through the pores of the ship when their tracker hums, sending a shock into their system meant to immobilize them._

_The pain is so absolute and terrifying that it almost stops them, but then the last dregs of their form slip inside the ship and it hums to life at the recognition of a new master. Through the sharp, stabbing pain radiating throughout their form, they can hear the ship probe their mind. Hoshi doesn’t have the focus to think of a destination through the panic, the fear, the pain. The ship doesn’t care; it scans their mind anyway, tapping into their base of knowledge and pulling out the only thing Hoshi really knows anything about._

_“No, no, anywhere but there,” Hoshi moans. The ship doesn’t care._

_“Coordinates set. Prepare for forced state change,” it tells them. To their horror, they feel something beyond the pain of the tracker in their system: hardness forming from the soft of their insides, muscles and sinew and bones grinding together to form a body they can assimilate with. “Your trip will take approximately 200 standard circadian years. Commencing cryogenic suspension.”_

_Hoshi feels a heart form inside of them– a heart, beating fast and pumping blood nowhere as their form solidifies, and they think they may be crying but they haven’t had lungs before and Hoshi can feel them try to fill with air but there’s no air in the ship, no air for them to breathe as the tracker shocks them again, a pain so overwhelming that they almost lose consciousness. The ship doesn’t care; it produces life-support valves from inside itself and they are shoved down Hoshi’s newly-formed throat, forcefully inflating their half-formed lungs._

_The stumps of fingers come up to grapple at the tube, and Hoshi gags; it feels so wrong to be able to do that. The tracker stuns them again, and this time they’re mostly body, and that body contorts violently, until they’re thrashing and the tube down their throat feels raw and they_ cry.

_The ship doesn’t care; it will make sure they can breathe even if they hate every minute of it. More valves come out from inside the ship and wrap around their newly-formed arms, their strange neck, their chest. Hoshi feels their body form and break in equal parts and they shudder as something is folded tight around them, pressing them into the shape of a human, curled in on itself. The tracker shocks them one final time and Hoshi can feel their consciousness fading away as the ship flows out into space._

Sometimes when they wake up in the ship now, it still feels like their body is half-formed and cobbled together and tonight is the worst it’s been. Hoshi can’t breathe, can’t even imagine what it feels like to breathe, can’t make themself control the biological imperatives this body is giving them, and so they pant, vision dark and skin burning. The ship has them wrapped up so tight, even now, even on Earf, that they feel trapped, suffocating. How horrible it is to have ways to die they couldn’t have imagined before.

The breaths they manage to draw in rattle around in their lungs as they think desperately to the ship _let me out let me out let me out._ Theirface scrunches up and finally, with a slick sound, the ship releases its hold on them and they fall onto their hands and knees, breath dragging in and out as their fresh heart calms down.

Hoshi can’t do it tonight, can’t wrap themself back up in the damaged, angry tendrils of his Mother and drift peacefully. They aren’t made for her anymore.

They throw the dress on over their shoulders and shiver; the fabric raises little bumps on their skin, something they know is called goosebumps. They feel sensitive all over, to the slightest change in the wind or temperature. Hoshi hates it.

Hoshi allows themself a few more tears, happy with how they soak into their new skin, and then they stand shakily and dart into the house. They want something warm and soft and inviting, not the bitter, cold weight of the ship wrapped around them. The house is dark and quiet as Hoshi pads through it, bare feet rustling a little against the hard floor. They know the route now by heart, two lefts and then a quick right up the stairs into the room where there’s a _bed_ , a soft luxury Hoshi was depriving themself of, and for what? The illusion of separation? Privacy? Comfort?

Any and all good reasons leave them when they slide the door open to see Wonwoo buried under several layers of blankets. The whole thing looks so close to home that Hoshi can feel themself rattle with want. They slink into the room and step over Jinki’s sleeping form and slide under the pile of blankets, wriggling their way closer to the center of the nest where they know Wonwoo will be warm and sleep-soft and kind. Sure enough, their feet kick against the hard bone of Wonwoo’s shin, and then their hands find the curve of Wonwoo’s wrists and then they can feel the hot breath pooling under Wonwoo’s chin and they just have to be there, to feel the soft plush of the mattress and the warm weight of the blanket and above all the pressure of Wonwoo’s arms around his neck.

Hoshi worms his way under Wonwoo’s arm and tucks their face right under his chin, letting his breath spill over them as finally, finally they feel at peace. Their body calms, the grinding wrongness under their skin dormant for a minute as Wonwoo snuffles and snorts and starts, hands coming up to pull Hoshi even tighter against his chest.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hoshi whispers.

“Is your heart always that fast?” Wonwoo murmurs, half the words thick with sleep. The words vibrate in his chest and make Hoshi shiver. Wonwoo’s fingers scrape gently against Hoshi’s scalp. “‘S’okay, just relax, yeah. Sleep now.”

They do.


	4. liquid

Like all the businesses on the island, the best and only traditional medicine store on Yeoseodo Island is a house marked only by an informally scrawled sign on a piece of sanded down driftwood propped next to the doorway. He realizes now that he’s facing the house that he doesn’t know if they’re open for business and is unsure if there is even a way to find out. The door to the house swings open before Wonwoo can drum up the confidence to knock, Jinki’s leash held limp in his hands.

In the doorway of the sea-weathered house stood an equally sea-weathered old woman wearing a gingham pink blouse with neatly rounded collars, a matching pair of pink capris, and dark sunglasses. She has the same close cut perm that Wonwoo’s grandma had when she was still alive; indistinguishable from the ladies who do exercises along the river by his mother’s apartment, energy undampened by their lined cheeks and heavily lidded eyes. She doesn’t look like a doctor, he thinks, and then he thinks, _why would you think that_.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Wonwoo says elegantly, “Uh. Doctor?”

The only reason he’s braving the public is because Hoshi woke up groaning with a miserable fever, plastered to Wonwoo’s side and sweating through his nightgown and Wonwoo’s sleep shirt. Wonwoo scoured the house for some of the medicinal herbs that he used to brew for his uncle, but found the tins empty. It only took about an hour of Hoshi’s overdramatized but very pitiful moaning for Wonwoo to break, clipping Jinki into his leash and setting off towards ‘town’.

Town being: the cluster of homes nearest to the general store and the port, where the merchants of Yeoseodo have sensibly decided to run their businesses mostly out of their own homes. Wonwoo had been to the doctor’s home once before at his uncle’s request, leaving him while Wonwoo went to replenish their stock of toilet paper, but they’d never technically met.

Ignoring Wonwoo, the doctor turns to Jinki and says, “Jinki-ssi, it’s been too long.” Jinki darts forward and Wonwoo loses grip on his leash with a soft swear under his breath. The dog likes everyone more than him. Jinki twines a happy circle around her legs and then disappears into the house.

“Jinki,” Wonwoo calls uselessly, and then bows in apology. “Sorry—I’ll get—”

“Jaeduk’s boy?” she asks appraisingly. Her eyebrows climb up above her glasses. Wonwoo nods slowly.

“Oh, come in now,” she says, exasperated. She turns and heads into the house, leaving Wonwoo to trail after her awkwardly. She leads him through the narrow, wood-paneled hallway that reminds him very much of his own house, until they reach a room that is lined on all sides with what looks like a complex filing system, just a simple table sat in the center of the room strewn with an analog food scale and piles of things that Wonwoo half-recognizes from his mom’s pantry.

Jinki is already curled up into a little ball underneath the table. When they enter, he doesn’t even bother to lift his head.

The woman sets up behind the table and then pushes her glasses up onto her head to squint at him. “You and your uncle are just alike. So awkward and for what? A waste of your good face. Symptoms?”

“Sorry,” Wonwoo says again. He shifts his weight and clears his throat. “It’s not for me. It’s for my—friend.” Wonwoo coughs again and takes a another shuffling step into the room.

“Just alike,” she rolls her eyes. “The white-haired one? I know him. I can treat him. Is it the sweating?”

A surprised huff of a laugh escapes him and he shakes his head. “No—well. Kind of. He has a fever.”

He shouldn’t be surprised that people have noticed Hoshi, but it still sets him off-balance. Wonwoo guesses they’ve noticed him, too, and he’s much less notable than Hoshi. 100 people on an island is even less than you’d think.

“Oh, simple,” the doctor says with a wave of her hand, dark glasses falling back onto her nose. She opens up one drawer, sniffs it and then pulls out an ancient-looking hand weight system, a stick with a flat plate tied to it and a sliding bead on one end for balance. Jinki hops up and trails her as she zips from corner to corner, weighing out slivers of bark, roots, and dried herbs. She returns to the table and dumps out the pile into a recycled spiced miso paste container. She rips a strip of painter’s tape with her teeth and slaps it onto the lid, scrawling a line of directions in a handwriting that Wonwoo recognizes from the empty containers in his cupboards.

“As needed until the fever breaks,” she says briskly. Then, she turns her attention to him. Her dark eyes scan over his body clinically, nose wrinkling in judgement. Wonwoo glances down at himself. Long, gangly limbs. Mostly flat planes. His body is pretty much the same as it had been since he was 17, although his time on the island has put an unfamiliar gold on his skin and a slight, burgeoning muscle to his arms.

In response to her unspoken disapproval, he squirms.

She whirls around and starts off on her clattering collection dance again, this time returning with a variety of tiny, dehydrated flower buds and a pile of flaky, white root chips.

“For loss,” she says without looking up, tying it off in a square of fabric that she sets on top of the miso container. “Enough for both of you.”

Something strikes him about the purposefully distant way she says it— _for loss_ —and the chastising, but unmistakably fond way she insisted the two of them were _just alike._ When his mouth opens, he hears himself ask, “Did you know my uncle? Well?”

Bristling, she braces her palms against the table. With clearly put-upon irritation, she says, “Well, I didn’t have much of a choice, did I? Every day, this man comes along to pound on my door.”

In a high tone voice very unlike his late uncle’s, she mimicks, “ _Kim Insook-ssi, Ahn Seungho has a stomachache, Ahn Seungho’s body is aching, Ahn Seungho is more tired than usual._ ”

She waves a hand and continues, resigned. “We got to know each other. Ahn Seungho was sick for a long time.”

Wonwoo blinks. “Sick?”

Then, he remembers the slip of paper from Tony’s room, _Patient Name: Ahn Seungho_.

“Not that you could tell.” A slight smile plays on her thin lips. “He was just the same all the way to the end. Jaeduck too, though he’s always been a bore.”

It would be rude if not for the obvious affection in her voice. Wonwoo finds himself taken aback again despite all the pieces having sat in front of him the whole time. It shouldn’t be so foreign to think of his uncle having friends on the island. He’s starting to wonder if he really is as stupid as Hoshi insists he is.

Then, she stands straight and claps her hands to shake off any loose clippings. “You’ll know when to drink that. Just pay attention.”

Wonwoo bows and starts digging into his pocket for his crumbling wallet, too fat from old receipts and loyalty cards that he’s too shy to use. “Thank you,” he says, bowing again. “How much...?”

Suddenly, she’s right in front of him, her face scrunched up in offense and the bundle of packaged goods shoved into his arms. With her hand scale, she raps him on the head sharply once. He yelps, the shock of it making bright spots appear in front of his eyes. Jinki seems to enjoy it, his tail wagging frantically.

“Boy, you’re already months behind on delivering kabocha and perilla leaves from the garden,” the doctor snaps,waving a hand dismissively. “Bring them tomorrow.”

She shoos him towards the door and he bows again, a full 90 degrees this time. “Sorry,” he murmurs, his gaze on his tattered sneakers and the rich wood of her floor.

“Oh, stand up,” she says dismissively. “The church ladies are going to be unbearable once I tell them you’ve decided to stop holing up in that dusty old house.”

“Uh—” Wonwoo starts, awkward. But then, maybe he has been holed up a bit. Maybe he wouldn’t have so many moments where he feels stupid if he paid more attention. Got out more. “I'll bring them tomorrow. If Hoshi is feeling better.”

The doctor’s face closes off, locking up into something unreadable. Wonwoo replays what he’d said to try and figure out if he’s going to get hit again.

Then, in a tight voice and arms crossed over her chest, she says, “Just the same. Stupid over someone or another.”

Wonwoo freezes, feeling very exposed. He opens his mouth, and finds that he has nothing in rebuttal.

Her lips flatten into a stern line. “It meant something to him. I know he didn’t tell you. Old fool. A fool his whole life. It meant very much to him, that you came here.”

Wonwoo’s chest goes tight and he swallows it down. He hadn’t come to Yeoseodo to be a comfort to his uncle. He’d come to pity him. Wonwoo feels sick to his stomach with regret, with wasted time, with nothing to do about it.

He says what he can with a lame mouth, the words lacking. “What else could I have done?”

“What else?” The doctor turns her gaze to the ceiling. “What am I to do with these idiots?”

Then, she holds up a hand to him, a resigned smile playing at her features. An apology dies on Wonwoo’s lips. “Ah, I’ve been asking for twenty five years. Maybe it’s me who’s the idiot, expecting answers. Now, get out of my house.”

Wonwoo obliges. He trails out of the house with his arms full and Jinki at his heels, the early afternoon sun blinding. He blinks into the brightness. With one hand, he types a note into his phone to look for photos of Uncle Jaeduk when he was younger. Wonwoo’s age, maybe. He wonders how old he was when he met Tony. How long it took them to move in together. If they met in Seoul, or on Jeju, or here on the rocky cobblestone roads of Yeoseodo. When Tony got sick. When he died. How long they had.

His feet carry him home absently, the way already etched so deep into his muscles that he could have sworn he’d been walking it his whole life.

* * *

Hoshi keeps their eyes closed until they hear the front door swing shut, displacing the air in the house and sending a gust up to flutter the curtains across from the stairs. They’re so congested that their eyes feel too tight for their skull. Hoshi hates having bones. And having cartilage. And skin. A body is an inconvenience.

Wonwoo had told them to take a bath, something about clearing the “gunk” out of Hoshi’s system, so Hoshi throws the heavy blanket off their legs and lopes to the bathtub next to the stairs.

They huff. They’re supposed to be _entirely_ gunk, but this stupid fucking planet requires stupid fucking hard bits inside of them. Walking to the bathtub seems to rattles every bone inside of their body. Even holding themself together like this is hard, like their body wants to be pulled in hundreds of different directions. Hoshi feels stuffed into their skin.

They turn on the water and crank it until it’s steaming, feeling heavy and tired and... a little bit full of gunk. God.

Hoshi slips off their dress, not even enjoying the feeling of the soft fabric rustling against their new skin. They jump into the tub before the cold air can drift over their skin.

The hot water feels like home, and Hoshi can only resist the temptation to melt for a second before they let go, tired of pulling all the strings inside their body taut. The feeling of dissolving back into their normal form almost makes them cry. It’s more than being in the water, now; they _are_ the water, warm and steaming and liquid. Hoshi feels their bones disappear with a little hum and wonders when it will be easier to be alive here. When their body won’t feel too big and too small and too tight and too loose at the same time. When their skin will feel less like a prison.

It’s hard. Hoshi is made temporary by the low density of the air and the heavy pull of the stars and as hard as they try, sometimes it feels overwhelming to try and stay solid.

The joy helps, though. Even through the fog of a ‘cold’ or whatever Wonwoo had called it, Hoshi’s malleable body hums with an incessant joy that has yet to wash out of them. Their body is held together through sunny, lazy mornings, through sunset dinners _al freshco_ and SHINee videos and walks with Jinki along the grey, cobbled coast. Their body can run and jump and hug, held together by sheer force of will.

The not-belonging hasn’t gone away, not yet. It probably won’t for a while.

Hoshi breathes out. Even the thought of having _a while_ on this planet feels unreal. Are they allowed to be so happy and so sad at the same time? To mourn their whole life, their whole family, and make a new family at the same time?

It’s a lot of questions and Hoshi has no answers.

There’s a faint scratching noise from the stairs and Hoshi sort of cobbles some of their body together to see what it is. Sylvia ascends the steep wooden staircase, clearly in pursuit of her makeshift nest Hoshi had proudly made from one of Jinki’s unused dog beds.

“Good morning, Sylvia,” Hoshi croaks out. Their voice doesn’t work great without a throat. Sylvia ignores them, unsurprisingly. She’s been grumpy lately, more than usual. Hoshi can tell she doesn’t like being trapped in the house. She misses her home. Hoshi can relate.

Maybe if Sylvia had a Wonwoo of her own... Hoshi should find her a chicken partner.

The bird makes a big fuss out of settling down onto her nest, tutting and clucking and ruffling her feathers as she tries to get comfortable. Hoshi spills up over the sides a little bit to watch her.

“Is it egg time?” Hoshi says. Sylvia ruffles her feathers and lets out a chickeny little grunt, and then hops up. Sure enough, there’s a fresh egg between her feet.

Without thinking much about it, Hoshi extends an appendage out of the tub and grabs the egg, then cracks it into the tub and starts eating.

It’s only once the egg is gone, shell and all, that Hoshi feels a bit self-conscious.

“Ugh,” they mutter. “Sorry Sylvia.”

Hoshi has rarely, if ever, felt shame. Why would they? But here, in this bathtub with the last remnants of eggshell still dissolving slowly into their body, Hoshi feels disgusting. Something that makes people throw up and faint when they see them.

Earf makes them feel like a monster.

From downstairs, the door opens with a jingle and then shuts, sending another gust of air up the stairs. Wonwoo murmurs something to Jinki and then calls up the stairs, “I got tea!”

“Don’t come up!” Hoshi yells back, voice still sort of weird as they try to recompose their body. Wonwoo can’t see them like this.

“What, are you naked?” Wonwoo asks from the foot of the stairs. Hoshi hears him start to ascend. “You were naked for 12 hours when you took me hostage.”

Frantically, Hoshi lines up bones and muscle and nerves and skin, feeling sicker and sicker as their body compresses. The gunky, sucky feeling returns as their skull forms back around their eyes, pulling a thick fog over everything.

They see Wonwoo mount the top of the stairs like it’s happening underwater. Oh. It is.

Hoshi surfaces from the bathwater with a little splutter, lukewarm water running over their skin. Wonwoo looks wind-battered, hair sort of a mess and glasses sliding down the sharp point of his nose. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

Hoshi’s shivering, they realize. Wonwoo seems to notice it too, because he frowns a little at Hoshi and comes to the side of the tub with a fluffy towel. “Let’s get you back in bed, yeah?”

Hoshi nods. The exertion from that alone makes their head spin.

Wonwoo offers a polite hand that Hoshi takes gratefully, clambering out of the tub on sea legs. Their knees knock together and water runs down the smooth planes of their skin, leaving goosebumps everywhere. Wonwoo gives them a reassuring little smile and wraps the towel around their shoulders, then rubs the top of their head with a corner of it.

He looks so nice.

“You look so nice,” Hoshi says.

Wonwoo’s ears go a little pink. “I always look like this,” he says. He pulls the towel up over Hoshi’s head and rubs vigorously, trying to dry their hair.

Hoshi giggles from under the towel. The whole experience makes them feel a little off-center, out of orbit. Wonwoo drapes the towel back around Hoshi’s shoulders. They’re so close that their chests are almost touching, warmth radiating off Wonwoo like a furnace. Hoshi sways a little where they stand, drawn to Wonwoo’s body heat like a lizard.

They pitch forward, and Wonwoo’s surprised arms catch them easily. “Okay, horizontal time,” Wonwoo murmurs. He leads them both gently over to the bed across the room, Hoshi tucked easily under one of his arms. “Do you want anything to wear?” Wonwoo asks, lowering Hoshi’s weak body to sit down on the tangled sheets and dropping the towel behind them. His ears are still a little pink.

Hoshi reaches out a hand to feel Wonwoo’s fingers, always cold. With the sensation of touching his skin, Hoshi feels the usual rush of emotions that always seem to radiate off Wonwoo’s body. There’s so much warmth there that Hoshi doesn’t feel the chill anymore, the heat of Wonwoo’s affection for them like another blanket.

There’s feeling good, and there’s feeling better, Hoshi thinks. They aren’t the same, even if you want them to be. Hoshi can’t decide if they want to be good or just better, but they thread their fingers loosely through Wonwoo’s and tug anyway.

It feels right, in that moment, to pitch forward slightly and rest their forehead against Wonwoo’s. The feeling intensifies, hot like summer sun touching along Hoshi’s skin. Hoshi lets out a sharp inhale.

“Hey,” Wonwoo says, voice a little shaky. “What–”

Hoshi tips their chin up and connects their lips together. The warmth is almost unbearable, but Hoshi chases it anyway, because they can, because Wonwoo’s skin tells them it’s okay, it’s good.

The heat pulls at them, threads in and around the muscles they made and the skin they made. And they know, all at once, that they made them to do this. To feel this.

But then Wonwoo’s cold hands come up to rest on their shoulders and he disconnects their mouths with a little sigh.

“I got– Tea?” Wonwoo says. His ears are still pink, but it’s traveled down his neck and under the neckline of his shirt. “Do you want me to bring you some?”

Hoshi flops backwards onto the bed, sideways, and starts to feel cold again. “Yes, please.”

Wonwoo’s hands are honest; Hoshi knows that. His ears are honest. Even his face is honest, open and pink and a little shiny. But Wonwoo lies anyway, pulls his warmth away until he feels out of reach, and Hoshi doesn’t know who to believe.

* * *

“Wonwoo-ssi,” Jeonghan says graciously when Wonwoo swings the door open, like he’s the homeowner and Wonwoo the guest. “Thank you for having me!”

“Hi,” Wonwoo says, a little out of breath. He’d rushed to the door from the bathroom, where he’d been diligently training his mind away from Hoshi’s mouth by scrubbing the ancient grout. “I thought you would be here later.”

“Is this a bad time?” Jeonghan says, his eyes so wide that it gives Wonwoo no room to say anything but, “No, come in.”

Jeonghan only called to schedule the appraisal for the house about 20 minutes prior, but he guesses this does qualify as ‘later this afternoon’. Wonwoo usually wouldn’t have even answered, but by then was desperate for any distraction. He’d even almost answered one of Seungkwan’s calls, which he’d been diligently avoiding since Hoshi arrived. He’d been thinking about his kiss with Hoshi without pause for nearly six hours and now he has a migraine.

Jeonghan is wearing a pressed, pale yellow button up with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and his auburn hair is tied in his signature neat, low ponytail. Clutched to his chest is a clipboard with a thick stack of papers.

Wonwoo steps aside to let him in, and he notes warily, “A lot of paperwork.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Jeonghan laughs, waving an elegant wrist as he breezes past Wonwoo into the house. “I’m a professional.”

Wonwoo is not confident that Jeonghan has ever done this before, but the forcefulness of his delivery cows Wonwoo enough not to comment. Jeonghan asks him questions packed with words that he’s fairly sure aren’t real, and then laughs his gracious fake laugh and gives explanations that makes even less sense than the original term. Wonwoo follows him and his clipboard around the house like a specter, an unrooted anxiousness building in his body as Jeonghan makes blithe judgements about the value of the house.

“Will you show me to the master bedroom?” Jeonghan asks once he’s exhausted his inquiries about the kitchen plumbing to which Wonwoo had no useful answers. He scribbles on his papers with a furrowed brow, flipping back and forth between a few of them. When Wonwoo doesn’t respond, Jeonghan looks up. “It won’t take long.”

“Hoshi’s sleeping,” Wonwoo says. Wonwoo doesn’t want Jeonghan to see Hoshi curled up in their bed. He doesn’t want to think about Hoshi, bundled up in the comforter with his puffs of hair peeking out the top, wrapped so tightly that his cheeks bunch up against the fabric. He’s probably still flushed with the fever; or maybe it’s broken in his sleep, leaving him covered in a sheen of sweat.

Wonwoo blinks. “He’s sick.”

“Poor baby,” Jeonghan says, sticking out his bottom lip, but continues to look expectantly at him. Wonwoo looks towards the stairs.

“Well, there are other bedrooms, right?” Jeonghan asks, undeterred. He pushes his decorative glasses onto his head. “Let’s do those first.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says, not meaning it at all. “Whatever you want.”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan chirps, and sets off down the hallway next to the stairs. Over his shoulder, he says, “You know, even though there’s probably asbestos in the walls and the finishes are all out of a late-80s nightmare—the floorplan would be great for a young family. I’ve heard homeschooling is very trendy these days...”

Wonwoo, unbidden, imagines this house with children in it. There aren’t any children on the island, not since Seungcheol from what they’ve told him. He thinks of the way the doctor talked of the church ladies, and he knows that the kids who would live in this house would belong to the island as much as their parents. It would be a nice childhood, really different than his own pixelated grey upbringing in the city. They would grow up in the dirt and the sunshine, coated in ocean air.

He stops moving. Then, he says, “Hey, I’m gonna—I’ll meet you in there.”

Jeonghan does not pay him any mind, strutting down the hallway with a wave of his hand. Wonwoo turns and goes up the stairs, slower than he usually bothers to. At the top, he listens through the door but doesn’t hear anything. _Dead quiet_ , he thinks, and then he thinks, _don’t think that_. Hoshi must still be sleeping. Of course he’s sleeping. He rests his hand on the doorknob. He can feel his heart pumping overtime, his pulse in the back of his throat. Maybe he’s dying, too. The air feels thin in his lungs.

Then, he hears Hoshi turn over in bed, the frame squeaking. Wonwoo sucks in a rattling breath he didn’t know he was holding and turns away from the door. He takes a step down, then another, then another. He forces the air in through his nose and out until the panic fades. He is fine.

Jeonghan has finished the office by the time Wonwoo joins him in the hallway, and he smiles brightly to welcome Wonwoo back. Wonwoo returns the smile weakly, just a creaky pull at the corners of his mouth.

“Perfect, just in time,” Jeonghan says, clapping his hands together around his clipboard. Then to Wonwoo’s vague horror, Jeonghan wrenches open the door to Tony’s room.

“Oh wow, great sized bedroom,” Jeonghan comments, scribbling on his papers. “The built-ins are dated, but we can just take them out.”

Wonwoo feels very sick all at once. Jeonghan doesn’t belong in here, talking about gutting the room. _Wonwoo_ doesn’t belong in here. He steps into the room, heartbeat picking up again, his feet leading until he’s standing protectively in front of the built-in vanity. In a foreign, defensive voice, he insists, “They’re fine.”

Jeonghan pauses, turning to face him.

“Wonwoo-ssi.” Jeonghan peers at him over his clipboard and pushes his fake glasses back onto his nose. “I’m only here to advise on maximizing value for sale.”

“The right person will want it the way it is,” Wonwoo says stubbornly, knowing it’s a stupid, petulant thing to say even as it’s coming out. “It’s not—who cares about the money.”

Jeonghan looks at him curiously. Then, he says, “Ah.”

“Ah, what?” Wonwoo says, crossing his arms. “I’m just saying that, you know. I’m not going to change everything to make people like the house. It’s fine the way it is. I like it. It’s cool.”

“It is cool,” Jeonghan agrees quietly. He nods, looking around the room. Wonwoo follows his gaze, landing on the mannequin in the corner, then the gauzy curtains, the heavy wardrobe. Wonwoo presses his body against the drawers of the vanity, bringing his arms behind his back so he can touch at the heavy, brass hardware. Then, Jeonghan tucks his clipboard underneath his arm and says, “I think I have enough for now.”

Wonwoo startles, pitching a step forward. “Wait—are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” Jeonghan says with a beautiful, sunny smile. He advances quickly and places a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Wonwoo-ssi!”

“I’m not worried,” Wonwoo says. He palms at the back of his neck. Then, “Sorry. I’m kind of. Just, yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s a special place,” Jeonghan assures him, his voice taking on a foreign quality that takes Wonwoo a moment to place as sincerity. Wonwoo swallows past the embarrassing emotions threatening to break across his face. Jeonghan pulls away, and nods. “I understand.”

Wonwoo opens his mouth to protest. But why? It _is_ a special place. It’s obvious to anyone. It’s just that Jeonghan is making it sound like it’s special specifically to Wonwoo. And Wonwoo, for his part, doesn’t deserve to claim this place specially at all.

But Jeonghan takes his silence as agreement. “I should let you get back to Hoshi,” he says, clicking the cap back on his pen with a closed-mouth smile. “I’ll see myself out, take your time here. I’ll talk to my contractor about the exterior repairs and we’ll be in touch.”

Then, like a breeze, Wonwoo is alone again.

* * *

The tea unfurls in the hot water and Wonwoo watches it, leaning against the counter like he used to when he was making tea for his uncle. The dried-out flower buds and white bark stain the water a murky green, and a bitter botanical smell wafts up from the mug. For loss.

He thinks of his uncle leaning against this counter, brewing some medicinal tea for Tony. The doctor said Tony was just himself, until the end. So maybe he’d be downstairs too, draped on a kitchen chair and petting Jinki with his feet under the table. Wonwoo wants to know if his mom knew that Jaeduk was happy.

Three weeks ago, Wonwoo opened his bedroom door with a cup of stinking tea in his hands and his uncle was dead. He should use a gentler word than dead, he knows. But he was dead. It wasn’t a passing away; it wasn’t poetic. It just happened.

Wonwoo opens the door to Tony’s room with his own stinking cup of tea. He walks over to the window and pulls back the curtains and dust shakes off of them in a silent explosion, glinting in the late afternoon gold. There are crystals hanging in the window, and they catch the sun and paint the room with dancing little circles of light. Wonwoo watches them and thinks, _what the hell are these for_ and then he thinks, in a voice that sounds like Hoshi’s, _for fun, stupid_.

He takes a sip of the tea, and then walks over to the vanity to set it down. It is very quiet, as quiet as it was before Jaeduck died, and quieter than its been since. Wonwoo is rarely awake these days while Hoshi is asleep, he guesses. Hoshi fills the house with a chaotic brightness that is unmistakably alive; Tony was probably the same. He seems like he would be.

It’s that thought that makes him do it. He wants to know. He wants to know Tony, now. He wants to know Jaeduck. He remembers the doctor saying, _it meant something to him_ and he thinks that maybe Jaeduck wanted him to know, too. Wonwoo opens the top drawer and pulls out everything that he had shoved in haphazardly on the first day that he and Hoshi cleaned the house.

He separates out the lab report and the letter into a neat pile. His fingers catch on a small notebook, the cover only slightly thicker than the pages, and he picks it up. When he thumbs through it, he sees a new handwriting—wild and dancing across the page, like it was always written in a rush.

_99/02/19 — Threw up breakfast and had the worst shits. Told Duckie that maybe the church ladies were onto something about the gays going to hell if I’m capable of producing demonic bowel movements like these. (He laughed, thank god. He’s been downright dour since I passed out the other day.) Took a walk to the water and the chill was refreshing. Felt good to ice my old bones. Kim Insook says it’s a full moon, tonight. I think I’ll drag Jaeduck out to the porch to look at it. Ah, what a life._

Wonwoo swallows. He reaches for the tea, and takes the notebook with him to sit on the bed. He takes a sip, lets the pungent, earthy taste coat his tongue. He skips further and further ahead. He feels twisted for it, but he wants to know. He should have known before. He should have asked while he still could.

The writing continues all the way to near the end of the notebook, like it was divinely measured. Creepy. Then, his heart beating fast, he flips from the empty page to the last page littered with Tony’s scrawl.

_2008/09/15 — I don’t know what’s finally going to do me in, the stupid fucking disease or hearing my mother tell me how thin I am. As if I’m unaware that I’m wasting away to nothingness. Like it’s not the fucking point._

_I am sick of ‘lasts’. I can say it here, at least, since Jaeduck won’t hear any of it. What’s the point of pretending? I had my last Chuseok meal. I had my last trip to Daegu. If I’m anything to do with it, my last visit with my family. I have no interest in stringing this along, you know. I don’t want to be remembered as a lifeless waif. I won’t have it._

_My symptoms today are that I am dying. I don’t have the energy to explain. I am not in the mood to catalogue my little joys, but let’s suppose that I die in my sleep tonight, I would never be able to rest knowing my last entry made me seem like a bitter old hag. So, here’s my little joy today: Jaeduck’s face while he choked down my mother’s rancid cooking. Haha. I love him dearly._

Then, the last.

_2008/10/01 — I jinxed it. I really started dying, after that last one. Haha. Oh, well. I think I’ll make this my last entry, be purposeful about it. It’s funny, how fond I feel holding this little notebook full of all of my little horrors. Decades of fevers and stumbling around, volcanic shits and retching through the night, aches and pains. But, that was always going to be the case, wasn’t it?_

_Duckie, I bet you’re reading this, crying like a baby over how I’ve suffered. Well, stop it. The luckiest moment of my entire life was throwing up in the urinal next to where you were taking a piss at that awful club in Itaewon. My life was over, then I was born again on the grimy floor of that bathroom. I won’t have another fight over how tragic or not my life has been—how boring. It just was. I lived. And I would change nothing about it. I wouldn’t risk my luck._

_It’s been a joy, my love. Every awful second._

Wonwoo breaks open. It feels old, what’s coming out of him. Like he’s been loosening up a clogged pipe this whole time, decades of gunk finally giving way to the pressure. With shaky hands, he fumbles to set his cup of tea down on the floor so he doesn’t stain the bedspread, and then he curls in on himself, his face tucked close to his knees and his arms crossed over his stomach, clutching. He begins to cry.

It is so sad. It is not fair. Those things are true.

But as he cries, as his nose runs into his mouth and his face swells, the longer it goes on the more it feels good. His body wracks with a sob, the depth of it startling him. And when it becomes so much that he can no longer think about how it is all so sad, the easier it is to be inside of this fragile, dripping body. He didn’t know that there was this much inside of him.

“Wonwoo?”

Hoshi’s voice is small at the door and Wonwoo can barely see him through the haze, but he wants to. He rubs his hand across his eyes and sees Hoshi painted in the doorway, antennae glowing soft and semi-translucent; his long, lean frame is draped in a gauzy white nightgown, so thin that it floats away from him with every movement. He is so beautiful.

“You’re beautiful,” Wonwoo says plainly, his voice wrecked. He doesn’t stop crying to speak; it pours out with the rest.

On a whisper, Hoshi says, “Oh.”

Then, Hoshi’s hands and his soft, overheated body are wrapped all around him. Wonwoo is vaguely aware that Hoshi is crying, wetness staining the shoulder of his t-shirt where Hoshi has buried his face.

“It does feel good,” Wonwoo gasps out, and then he’s crying again, and then he laughs. God, what’s the difference? He lifts his head and blinks until he can see Hoshi’s face, all slick and swollen with tears. Then, without the burden of thought, Wonwoo traces Hoshi’s jaw with his thumb. He brings their foreheads together, like Hoshi did this morning. Hoshi’s eyes are huge, as big as they go, his mouth slack, his breath so close that Wonwoo can feel Hoshi’s surprise on his own lips.

Wonwoo has never felt anything like this. So fucking terrible and terrifyingly wonderful. Every awful second, a joy. Wonwoo presses his lips to Hoshi’s and his mouth opens on a sob. Hoshi doesn’t flinch away—he drinks it in. He makes a deep, mournful noise that escapes in the moment that they gasp for air, their lips still connected. It lands in the pit of Wonwoo’s stomach, and sends him lurching forward until they’re laid out flat on the bed that Tony never slept in a day in his life.

Hoshi smears his tear-streaked face against Wonwoo’s cheek, his lips catching on the crest of his cheekbone, a tenderness among the mess. Wonwoo kisses the corner of his mouth, the soft curve of his jaw, the length of his neck. At the warm, sweaty hollow of Hoshi’s clavicle, Wonwoo rests. His breath finally slows, the emotion shared between them smoothing the ragged edges of his grief.

Hoshi’s fingers touch at the back of his head and Wonwoo presses into the gesture, taking the comfort greedily. Then, in a low tone that Wonwoo hasn’t heard from him yet, Hoshi says, “So good.”

Wonwoo huffs out a laugh, and holds Hoshi tighter when he shivers from the way Wonwoo’s breath dances along the sensitive, new skin on his neck. They lay there for a long time. The sun sinks low enough that the crystal-scattered light goes dark. Wonwoo listens as Hoshi’s breathing deepens into a soft, sick-clogged snore, presses his cheek to Hoshi’s chest to feel the rapid pulse of his heartbeat.

He tugs at the duvet until it comes unmade and wraps them both in the scratchy, cheap warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MUCH MORE ART!??!?!!? gooshi.... he's living...... 
> 
> 1\. [gooey hoshi in living color](https://twitter.com/caprizn/status/1320454920349327360?s=20)  
> 2\. [gooey hoshi sippin on boba](https://twitter.com/bearyjamjam/status/1320421629864910848?s=20)
> 
> thank you to everyone who has been inspired by this story to make such wonderful companion pieces!!!


	5. vaporization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for non-explicit mention of self-harm / suicide

In Seungkwan’s defense, he tried everything. Over the course of the last two weeks, he has texted, called, and emailed at length. He even downloaded Discord. He sent _money_. Not a single word from Wonwoo. It should be obvious that intervention is the last resort, as he cannot think of anything quite as terrible as getting up at 3 am to catch a decrepit glorified fishing vessel to go ensure that Wonwoo is not dead in his dead uncle’s house.

Seokmin barfs on the boat. One of the many horrors of their travel to Yeoseodo Island, which Seungkwan hated on principle of it being in the vicinity of Jeju Island without _being_ Jeju Island, but which Seungkwan now hates on principle of it being ugly, inconvenient, and actively hostile to him and his loved ones.

Seungkwan steps gingerly over the threshold to the rickety, barnacle-worn dock and holds his functional, hard-shell suitcase aloft over the grime of the old wood with a sour look on his face.

“Okay, ew.”

“It’s kinda dope,” Hansol comments, hiking up his backpack and flipping the hood of his short-sleeve sweatshirt up over his hair. “We’re like the only ones here.”

“We better not be,” Seokmin groans, still a little green around the edges. “Otherwise, I sacrificed a perfectly good cheese pastry to the sea for no reason.”

There is a frail looking attendant on the dock who does not look up when they approach, even though Seungkwan has been told that his walk is distinctly authoritative and commanding. She is consumed with the morning paper which is somehow more than one single page long.

“Hello, auntie,” Seungkwan says politely, pulling his suitcase to a stop at the start of the vast expanse of concrete that they’re calling a port. She does not look up. Seungkwan can’t help but think that this would never happen in Jeju. Other island people are just different.

His voice sweeter than before, he tries again. “Excuse me, auntie. We’re looking for Jeon Jaeduk’s house? Or—oh, they have different family names. Lee Jaeduk?”

Creakily, she looks up from the paper. The summer sun has not yet broken through the cloud cover of dawn and as the greying light hits her lined, vacant expression, Seungkwan is suddenly unsure whether this person is even alive. If he ends up haunted, Wonwoo is going to owe him forever.

Then, she raises a hand and points towards a gravel road leading up a hill, just beyond the concrete sea and off of what appears to be a sad one-lane excuse for a main road.

“Oh, thank you, auntie. Have a good day,” Seungkwan says, bowing to 90 degrees. Slowly, her head dips back down to return to her paper.

With a fair amount of dread, Seungkwan turns and looks up at the hill. Hansol throws an arm around his shoulders and asks, “You ready?”

Seungkwan pauses. The dark thought that’s been lingering in the back of all of his ranting and raving about Wonwoo finally breaks into the forefront of his mind. He looks up at Hansol. “He’s okay, right? We’re not going to be walking into like. Like.”

Seungkwan swallows. Then, he shakes his head violently. “Okay, no.”

Hansol looks at him searchingly for a moment, then laces their fingers together and shakes his head. “No way. He’s fine. Wonwoo-hyung—he wouldn’t do that.”

Seungkwan nods decisively. Seokmin catches up with them and throws an arm over each of their shoulders. He’s got a jaunty little straw hat that he’s procured from God knows where. Seungkwan flinches when a loose piece of rattan brushes his cheek, but blessedly, it jerks him out of the nightmare scenarios playing out in his mind.

“A-go, go, go!” Seokmin cheers.

Seungkwan, suffering in too many ways to list, echoes him with an unconvincing fist pump to the cloud-blanketed sky. “A-go, go, go, indeed.”

* * *

Yeoseodo is very quiet. There are only 100 people on the island and an average age of 54, so by 10 the whole land mass goes silent except for Jeonghan’s love shack on the hill and his own creaky old house. Wonwoo sleeps harder here than he’s slept anywhere, the night of it so heavy that it feels underwater.

But the thing about Boo Seungkwan’s voice is that Wonwoo would jerk awake to the sound anywhere, anytime, anyhow. His Seungkwan Reflexes have been honed over years of shared backseat car rides and bus journeys, movies that Wonwoo inevitably nods off in the middle of, and many lectures delivered no matter the barrier between them, whether that be a door or the Pacific Ocean.

Boo Seungkwan’s voice does not belong on this grey, rocky island, especially not on the threshold to Wonwoo’s house, just like how Hoshi’s body does not belong anywhere but in the warm, empty indent next to Wonwoo in bed. But like the last few months of his life, nothing seems to be as it should.

Wonwoo scrambles to his feet and down the stairs before he can think anything else, not knowing much except that the only thing worse than Seungkwan finding out that he’s harboring an alien fugitive is him finding out without Wonwoo telling him first. Wonwoo skids down the last four steps straight into Hoshi, who is excitedly heading for the door. Wonwoo’s body collides with Hoshi’s with a dull little thump and Hoshi shouts, offended, “Hey! I was going to use the door correctly.”

“Do not,” Wonwoo starts to say, but then Hoshi is already handling the lock and Wonwoo, sock-footed and sleep-heavy, staggers across the landing to pull on the back of Hoshi’s dress.

Hoshi shrieks and lets out a belly laugh, his hand still on the handle of the door. He tips backwards almost into Wonwoo’s arms and goes limp against him, a dead weight. “Get off me!” Hoshi squeals.

“You get off me!” Wonwoo growls, putting an arm around Hoshi’s waist and trying to heft him away from the door. Hoshi lets out a feral noise and reaches behind him to push his fingers into Wonwoo’s face, the other hand still resolutely gripping the handle of the door. He’s sort of panting and laughing at the same time, desperate as Wonwoo tugs him further back into the house.

Hoshi’s sweaty hand presses the lock and the door unlocks with a jingle.

Wonwoo’s stomach drops as the door swings open slowly to reveal Boo Seungkwan, leveling them with a look of deep disgust.

“Hi,” Seungkwan says lightly. “I’m looking for Jeon Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo lets go of Hoshi’s dress and shuffles back into an upright position.

Seungkwan continues, “182 centimeters? Dark hair, glasses? He went missing a few weeks ago.”

“Hi, Seungkwan,” Wonwoo sighs.

“There you are,” Seungkwan coos, “Was that so hard? Did you break both of your hands, is that why you couldn’t text me?”

“I...” Wonwoo scratches the top of his foot with his toes. “I was busy. Sorry.”

“Ah,” Seungkwan says. There’s a sulky set to his mouth that Wonwoo recognizes as badly-concealed hurt. His gaze falls on the piles of junk and debris organized into small, nonsensical piles all around the house. Then it slides over to Hoshi pointedly. “I see. Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Hoshi gives Seungkwan one of his overly-formal 90 degree bows. “Nice to meet you. I’m Hoshi.”

Wonwoo looks sidelong at Hoshi, who straightens back up with a bright smile that shows all four of his giant, round front teeth. Then, figuring this is as good as it’s gonna get, Wonwoo gestures with his thumb and says, “This is Hoshi.”

Seungkwan looks Hoshi up and down and turns to Wonwoo and replies, with a sweet sort of disgust, “That’s not a name.”

Hoshi slides his sweaty palm into Wonwoo’s and looks nervously over at their other guests. Wonwoo flinches as he sees Seungkwan’s gaze land on their interlaced fingers and he almost rips his hand away on instinct.

This is exactly why he didn’t want to tell Seungkwan about anything. Hoshi isn’t doing anything wrong. _Wonwoo_ isn’t doing anything wrong. Wonwoo squeezes Hoshi’s hand.

“Well, now that we’ve cleared up why you were ignoring me, may we come in?” Seungkwan asks, arms crossed.

Wonwoo thinks about telling Seungkwan no. He really considers it for a moment. And then he crosses his arms and steps aside. Seungkwan slides past him in a huff.

Hansol follows behind and claps Wonwoo on the shoulder as he passes. “Hey dude. I’m sorry about your uncle.”

“Oh,” Wonwoo says, rubbing at his eye underneath his glasses. Hansol is so nice. “Yeah. Thanks. He was old.”

Wonwoo feels fucked up the second he says it. He doesn’t know where the instinct to downplay everything came from. Maybe it’s always been there.

Seokmin follows Hansol and his whole face lights up in his big, dopey smile even through the bleariness of morning still marking his features, hair mussed from the ferry ride. He holds his hand out for a fist bump. “Hyung! I missed you!”

Wonwoo knocks knuckles with a smile that he knows doesn’t quite meet his eyes, and closes the door behind them and their luggage with a sense of dread pooling in his stomach. When he turns around, Seungkwan is standing there with his arms crossed. He takes a deep, deep breath and then lets it out in a whistle.

Then, he claps his hands.

“Seokmin, you can put the crabs in the fridge, and Hansol, can you fill the steamer? I’m going to— Hyung, do you have any buckets? Trash bags?”

“What?” Wonwoo says, scratching the back of his head. “What? Um. Why?”

“Hi, good morning,” Seungkwan says. “Your mother told me the house was a mess and that you were probably starving and also that you need a haircut.”

“Um.” Wonwoo doesn’t know what to say, so he sticks to his old M.O. and says nothing. Lets Seungkwan make inferences out of his silences like he always has.

“We have bags under the sink,” Hoshi adds helpfully. “The bucket is in the sinkhole, though. Don’t think you’ll be able to get it out.”

“The...? Okay. Alright.” Seungkwan rubs a fist into his eye socket and looks up at the ceiling. “Well, I guess we should get started, then.”

“Started?” Wonwoo asks.

“Helping, hyung.”

* * *

By mid-afternoon, Wonwoo is at his limit. In the last two months, he killed his uncle and had an alien crash land his house and hold him hostage at gunpoint, but somehow it’s the sound of Seungkwan opening and closing doors, and the roar of the vacuum all around his house that is going to kill him for real this time.

He’s in a special circle of hell now where every time he finishes a task, Seungkwan, armed with the rubber gloves he no doubt brought from home, appears from the ether to give him something else to do. It’s making his head spin how cleaning out the house could be as simple and fun as it has been with Hoshi and as fucking awful as this never-ending drag of a day.

Wonwoo has never, ever begged someone in his life to stop cleaning, least of all if they were cleaning something for him, but every noise Seungkwan makes sounds aggressive and pointed.

The thud of a bucket in the bathroom: _You can’t take care of yourself._

The roar or the vacuum: _You inconvenience me and I resent you._

The clattering of dishes: _I’ll just take care of it, of you, how I always do._

When he finished cleaning out under the sink, Seungkwan told him to start sorting through the papers in the office. But on the way to the office, the door to Tony’s room caught his eye and without thinking about it too much, Wonwoo slips in and flops face down onto the hard, dusty bedspread and stays there until the air goes stale, willing his mind to stay blank.

He doesn’t know how long he steals away in there, the clanking of chores seeming faraway from the stolen space of Tony’s room. Absently, he mourns the morning that he would have had with Hoshi. Who knows how long it’ll be before it’s just them again.

God. He should have just answered his phone. He flips over onto his back and opens up Infinite Staircase on his phone. His little businessman falls off the staircase right away, but Wonwoo gets right back at it.

After a few rounds, a sharp sound at the door knocks him off his digital staircase and Wonwoo’s head jerks up to the door.

The door swings open. Of course, it is Seungkwan.

“Are you hiding?” Seungkwan throws the comment over his shoulder as he drags a bucket behind him into the room without sparing him a glance. His shirt is still tucked in.

Wonwoo scrambles to sit up, locking his phone and shoving it into his pocket. “No.”

“Sure,” Seungkwan says, snide. Wonwoo feels ill.

He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much to have someone in there, except that Seungkwan might see everything in there as garbage, just like Jeonghan had. Hoshi hadn’t seen it as garbage. He had seen the dresses, the costumes, the crystals as something joyful and special. He didn’t see trash.

Seungkwan’s back is to Wonwoo, peering into the desk drawers. He reaches out and Wonwoo can’t get to his feet fast enough.

“Don’t touch that stuff,” Wonwoo says, short and sharp. Seungkwan jolts violently and jerks his head towards the noise.

“What?” he says evenly. “I was just—”

“Snooping,” Wonwoo says, cold anger slithering around in his gut.

Seungkwan rises to his full height and shoots back, “Cleaning. Someone has to.”

Wonwoo takes a step into the room. “Not in here, Seungkwan. Okay?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and says lightly, “It’s a mess in here. I don’t know how anyone can live like this, dust and trash everywhere.”

“I can handle it,” Wonwoo says crossing his arms over his chest.

Seungkwan flips one limp hand and says “Clearly not, by the state of the place.”

Seungkwan looks so out of place in that moment, ready to unknowingly erase what little family history Wonwoo has left. But of course, Seungkwan doesn’t get it. He can trace his family back generations, all ten thousand Boos accounted for on Jeju Island. Wonwoo has six pieces of paper and a water-damaged journal and no one who can seem to tell him the truth.

Wonwoo feels a familiar helplessness well up in him. The feeling of too much going on inside and not being able to get it out right in a way that makes sense. He’s spent a lifetime letting that feeling smooth out into a dullness that slowly bled its way into everything, until he was left how he was—depressed, he guesses. According to Seungkwan.

But as it bubbles up, he finds that it doesn’t flatten out. It keeps coming, his mind whirling with years of things he hasn’t let himself say. The things he choked back on the doorstep and the hallway. And then, just like that, he says them.

“This is my house.” Wonwoo says. “Stop cleaning just to make me feel bad.”

“To make you feel bad? I’m _helping_ ,” Seungkwan shoots back, straightening up and holding his hands aloft grandly, as if to bring attention to the lack of dust and grime. “Isn’t that what you needed? That’s why _Hoshi_ is here.”

“Yeah. He’s here to help me. Because _I’m_ taking care of it,” Wonwoo says. Well, he’s yelling actually. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does. He’s always been scared that once he started he might never stop. That there was a reason he’d never let it out that he’d managed to forget. “Isn’t that what everyone has wanted this whole time? For me to take responsibility. Care about something. Well, I do. I’m doing that.”

Seungkwan drops his trash bag. He folds his arms across his chest. Wonwoo glances at the papers on the desk; prescription refills, receipts, Tony’s symptom tracker notebook, Uncle Jaeduck’s apology note. Seungkwan is looking at it the way Wonwoo did until it was too late: dead things that belong to dead people.

“Wow.” Seungkwan’s face hardens, somehow. “I guess I should be glad _something_ was important enough.”

He didn’t mean it like that, but he should have known Seungkwan would take it that way. Wonwoo feels bad for how exhausted Seungkwan looks, but this is exactly why he was dodging Seungkwan’s calls. He didn’t want Seungkwan’s commentary on what he’s doing with his life. “Sorry,” Wonwoo says, with a shrug.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Seungkwan spits out, and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. He keeps his chin tilted up past the point of annoyance and into the realm of avoidance. When he looms closer, Wonwoo is taken aback to see Seungkwan’s eyes shiny like he’s about to cry. “You could have been dead, and that’s all you have to say, huh? _Sorry._ ”

“Hey,” Wonwoo says haltingly. He doesn’t know if he should pat Seungkwan on the shoulder or something when he doesn’t get what about this would be making him cry. He asks weakly, “Why would I be dead? I’m fine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Seungkwan says, throwing his hands in the air. Then, he wraps his arms around himself and looks over Wonwoo’s shoulder. “I don’t know, hyung. Why would you be dead? You’ve been basically comatose with depression for months. Your uncle just died. You’re on a remote fucking island and you stopped talking to everyone who loves you.”

“Wait—you thought I would do that?” Wonwoo balks. He takes a step back. “What the hell?”

“It was all I could think of!” Seungkwan bursts out. “You were ignoring all my calls, emails, and messages. Which, fine. I’m annoying. Whatever. But _then,_ you weren’t even logging onto your little games. So what else was I supposed to think? I couldn’t keep telling your mom that you were fine. You weren’t. You aren’t.”

Wonwoo feels worse and worse as Seungkwan shrinks back from his usual stature into something smaller and more vulnerable. “I just didn’t want—”

“What?” Seungkwan barks. His eyes are getting shinier by the second and the alarm bells are ringing in Wonwoo’s ears. He doesn’t know why Seungkwan would be this upset about anything that Wonwoo did. Annoyed, maybe. Mad. Yelling. Sure. But crying? Seungkwan continues, his voice caught in his throat. “You didn’t want what?”

“Why are you crying?” Wonwoo says, helplessly, frustration creeping into his voice.

Seungkwan looks at him for a small, still moment. His shoulders are so narrow and his face is drawn with exhaustion. Then, he opens his mouth and closes it. To Wonwoo’s horror, Seungkwan’s face screws up with emotion; the soft round of his cheeks twisting towards the center of his face as the tears he’s been holding back finally win out.

Wonwoo guesses that was the wrong thing to say.

“How could you ask me that?” Seungkwan cries. Wonwoo’s eyes widen at the still open door. Seungkwan’s voice carries. Wonwoo scrambles to figure out what to say, his arms crossed protectively over his chest.

With a horrific start, he realizes that he _likes_ that Seungkwan is crying. That the things he wants to say are things that will make Seungkwan cry more. The thought makes him feel nauseous.

“It’s not a big deal,” Wonwoo says finally. “It’s just me.”

Seungkwan chokes, his whole face red. “God, are you _serious_?” He hiccups and tries to say something more, but instead what comes out is a miserable, heaving sob.

“Hey, boo.”

Both of them swing around to face the door, where Hansol has appeared with his hat on backward and the most disappointed look Wonwoo has ever seen on his face. Immediately, Wonwoo takes a step away from Seungkwan.

Seungkwan darts a pained look towards Wonwoo and then back at Hansol. Hansol holds out his hand and says, “Let’s go, yeah? Come here.”

Seungkwan drops the trash bag. It hits the floor with an unidentifiable clank. Wonwoo has never seen him be obedient before, but he’s never given Hansol a reason to have to protect Seungkwan from him, either. Seungkwan trips over to Hansol, allowing himself to be tucked against Hansol’s side, a hand on his back.

Hansol turns both of them away from Wonwoo at once, leading him gently out of the room and leaving Wonwoo alone with the trash.

* * *

The waves crash, loud against the retaining wall of the port. Hansol glances sidelong at Seungkwan, the sweet curve of his cheek and the slope of his nose. He’s still puffy from earlier, the line of his jaw blurred. With one particularly exuberant gesture with his hands, he accidentally catches Hansol on the shoulder.

Seungkwan jerks his head towards Hansol with an shocked look, freezing mid-air. His eyebrows soften, and an apologetic grin catches at his mouth, the first smile Hansol has seen since they got on the ferry this morning. “Oops.”

“It’s okay,” Hansol replies with a grin of his own. It is okay. Seungkwan has been working at tiring himself out for about half an hour so far, and Hansol guesses it’s going to be a bit more time before he’s really ready to take a break from it. It’s been a hard month, and he knows that underneath the ranting is a well of hurt that Seungkwan has been staving off for a while now. He doesn’t usually need much from Hansol besides for him to be there; Hansol can do that, so he does.

Beside them, Jinki makes an impatient noise and jumps up to plant his front paws on the stone wall. Hansol scratches him behind the ears to say sorry for Seungkwan dragging him away from the house in the middle of a nap. With a defeated noise, Jinki slumps back down to all fours and looks longingly up the hill.

Jinki must remind Seungkwan of something new to be upset about, because he starts up again. “And can you believe—”

Hansol looks back out towards the sea and makes an understanding sort of sound. It kinda sucks when Seungkwan gets like this, really down on himself. Hansol thinks it’s funny to listen to Seungkwan bitch about something for hours on end—most things don’t really piss him off himself, so it’s fun to watch Seungkwan get worked up. Cute, usually.

But sometimes, when Seungkwan’s decided he’s fucked something up, it’s like this. Interspersed with all of his complaints about Wonwoo are these harsh little jabs at himself that Hansol worries Seungkwan believes more than he’s letting on. From his perspective, this fight between Seungkwan and Wonwoo has been a long time coming. Like, at least a decade. But it’s not about either of them being right or wrong. It’s just about two people who have been protecting each other for long enough that they forgot how to tell the truth. And the truth comes out, that’s all.

Hansol sighs. He reaches for Seungkwan’s hand, folding their fingers together. Mid-sentence, Seungkwan chokes on a word and starts coughing, hard enough that Hansol slaps him on the back to help it along a bit. Once he’s sure Seungkwan isn’t going to suffocate, he laughs.

“Maybe that’s a sign,” Hansol offers, along with the bottle of water he snagged from Seungkwan’s tote on their way out.

“Shut up,” Seungkwan wheezes. “God, I’m horrible. That was karma.”

He takes a sip of water, tilting his head all the way back. As he swallows, he purses his lips and cants his head toward Hansol. “Sorry for being like this.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hansol says, a little more sharply than he means to. He squeezes Seungkwan’s hand.

Seungkwan looks towards the horizon. Sun is setting now, and his skin lights up golden. “I get it, you know. That’s the worst part. He’s right.”

In a small voice, his real one, pitch low enough to mix with the push and pull of the ocean, Seungkwan says, “I’m obsessed with fixing him because it makes me feel better about myself. That’s not love. But what else am I supposed to do? Why even be here?”

It’s an echo of a fight they’ve had before. The itchy way Seungkwan fusses over him blown out into something bigger and bigger still, until Hansol had to say with a real sense of finality, _If you keep trying to fix me, I’m going to start believing I need fixing. Do I?_

“Come here,” Hansol says, shrugging his arm over Seungkwan’s shoulder until he tucks himself properly into Hansol’s side, his arm winding around his waist.

Hansol squeezes him tighter and tighter, until Seungkwan squirms in his grip and yelps. “Are you trying to kill me now? Is pacifism dead?”

“I’m squeezing out the bad stuff,” Hansol replies, his voice strained with the effort. “Like a sponge.” Seungkwan chokes out a laugh, which turns into half of a sob, and then back into a laugh, at which Hansol releases him to take stock of his face.

“Can I say something?” Hansol asks. He pushes Seungkwan’s hair away from his temple.

Seungkwan’s eyes go wider for a split second, his fragility heavy on his face. Hansol presses his thumb to the top of Seungkwan’s cheekbone and waits. Then, Seungkwan deflates, shoulders slumping into Hansol’s grasp. “I always want to hear what you think.”

Hansol searches for his words. “Just because hyung doesn’t need you to _do_ anything for him doesn’t mean he doesn’t need you.”

“But—”

Hansol continues, ignoring him. “You can just be here. Maybe it’ll help hyung feel like he can just be here, too. Cause, you’ll be here no matter what.”

Hansol shrugs. A chill is starting to creep in with the sea mist, and he rubs the tops of Seungkwan’s arms. Seungkwan releases his grip at Hansol’s waist to cross his arms across his chest. His spine curves in. It takes Hansol a second to realize that Seungkwan is crying again. Not the theatrics of earlier, but a slow, quiet release.

The truth has to come out, one way or another. And of the ways, tears are easy. So Hansol lets Seungkwan go and braces his hands against the textured stone of the wall. The sun dies over the horizon, slipping into the water.

Hansol waits until Seungkwan reaches back out for him, hands offered like a question. They get up together and Jinki jingles his way to a stand, too; Seungkwan startles with the noise.

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan gasps, pressing a hand to his heart. “I forgot he was here.”

“After all of that about rescuing him from his _ill-equipped caretakers_ ,” Hansol laughs with airquotes. He hands Jinki’s lead to Seungkwan from where it was pinned underneath his own seat.

“Well,” Seungkwan sniffs with superiority, recovering his attitude. “I suppose even benevolent overlords must admit their mistakes every once in a while. To avoid unnecessary coups.”

“Yeah,” Hansol says. On a yawn, he slings his arm over Seungkwan’s shoulder and adds, “While I’m saying what I think, I also think you should read less Sun Tzu before bed.”

Seungkwan shoots him a look that makes Hansol smile. “Spoken just like someone who doesn’t believe in war, but enjoys the splendors.”

“You got me.” Leaning in close as they walk, Hansol murmurs, “Love you.”

“I love you,” Seungkwan whispers back after a long beat, his eyes on his feet, like he’s still trying to convince himself he’s allowed.

* * *

Wonwoo tries to make it upstairs to his room without anyone noticing. His luck doesn’t hold; he hears a faint noise from behind him and turns around at the top of the stairs to see Hoshi scrambling up after him. “Horizontal time?”

Wonwoo doesn’t answer; he’s got nothing left to say anymore. Everything he says makes things worse and it reminds him of why he’s spent most of his life not saying anything at all. He crosses the room back to his bed and tips facedown into the blankets, landing with a soft grunt. Hoshi follows him, bouncing on his face a couple times.

Wonwoo groans. His heart is still hammering in his chest, and he waits for the adrenaline to flow back out of his body but it doesn’t wane. He clenches his fingers into a fist and then relaxes his hand, over and over and still, Seungkwan’s words knock around in his skull like a bad dream.

Something inside him feels rotted. Maybe he’s been this way the whole time, but he’s just now letting it out.

Hoshi puts one warm, clammy hand on the back of his head and swirls his fingers in the hair at the nape of Wonwoo’s neck. He whispers seriously, “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Wonwoo doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t know if it’s okay to want Hoshi to stay anymore. Selfishly, he shakes his head anyway. No, he doesn’t want Hoshi to leave.

“You’re acting really weird,” Hoshi whispers, almost to himself. “Are you sure?”

Wonwoo rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. “I don’t know why you want to stay, really.”

“What?” Hoshi says. He shuffles over to latch onto Wonwoo’s arm. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You don’t even know what else is out there. Or what it’s like to be here without having to like. Deal with me.”

Hoshi turns to look at him, his light brows pulling together.

Wonwoo lets out a sharp sigh. He feels like no matter how deep he breathes the air isn’t staying inside of him. “I’m just saying.”

He continues on, too far into his head to stop. “I’d, I could give you the house. Whenever Seungkwan takes me back. Get you a couple chickens, set you up, you know? How about that, would you like that?”

“You— what? What?” Hoshi sits up violently and leans over Wonwoo’s face. “What do you mean, when he takes you back? Is he going to kidnap you?”

“No,” Wonwoo says, voice hollow. “But I’ll have to go back. This isn’t my life. I have to stop pretending.”

“I... what do you mean, not your life? You’re here right now,” Hoshi says directly into his face. He sounds angry, his hands feel angry, but Wonwoo feels like maybe talking will get whatever feels so horrible out of him. He doesn’t know when that changed, but now that his hands are shaking and his stomach boiling, anything has to be better than this.

“Yeah, but. I don’t belong here. And, I knew that but—”

“ _You_ don’t belong here?” Hoshi looks confused, upset. “Where else would you belong?”

“Like, in Seoul, I guess. At a tech job. Coding or whatever. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing and I need to grow up and stop pretending like I’m doing some good deed or something for cleaning up my dead uncle’s stupid house when all I’m doing is trying to pretend like I’m something good when I’m fucked up. I’m just fucked up.”

Hoshi’s hand clamps down on Wonwoo’s mouth like a brand. Wonwoo’s stomach lurches, and for one surprised and terrifying second he wonders if Hoshi is finally going to kill him.

“You’re just saying nothing, _”_ Hoshi spits into his face, hands tight and clammy. “So shut up! Just shut up!”

Wonwoo lets out a choked groan and grabs onto Hoshi’s wrists and still, Hoshi bears down on him, their noses nearly touching.

Hoshi isn’t looking at him like he wants to kill him. He looks powerful, like he could reach down Wonwoo’s throat and pull out whatever festering thing has been stuck in his chest since he was 12. Like he wants to do it. It’s the worst thing Wonwoo has ever seen, bad for him and his heart and his brain but he wants it so badly. Wants to swallow him like medicine and taste his skin and feel something break loose. Wants to hear Hoshi ask him, _doesn’t it feel better now? Did that help?_

Wonwoo manages to pry Hoshi’s hand off his mouth and gasps for air.

“Stop acting like you killed someone,” Hoshi says. “You feel bad. _You_ aren’t bad.”

“It— It’s not that— not that simple,” Wonwoo wheezes out. “You don’t get it—”

“Oh, I don’t get it?” Hoshi’s eyes flash, and for a moment, Wonwoo thinks Hoshi might cry, too.

“Why are you so angry?” Wonwoo asks, helpless. It feels like he can’t do anything today but misunderstand everyone. His hands come up to cover Hoshi’s on his face, even as Hoshi squeezes his cheeks so hard that his thumbs might make permanent dents.

“You wanna die?” His eyes narrow, blurry and bright. “Leaving me with the house— ugh! Stupid! Stupid Wonwoo!” He shakes Wonwoo’s face so hard that his teeth rattle in his skull, until all the tumult and acid comes loose and leaves him heavy and tired.

“Sorry,” He manages to choke out, and it isn’t right and it isn’t enough but it’s something.

Hoshi slumps over on him and his hands loosen around Wonwoo’s face, cupping his chin like a hug instead. “Don’t say that to me,” he murmurs. “Idiot.”

Bitter, acrid tears burn in his eyes and Wonwoo hopes they wash away the oily feeling on his skin.

They lie there tangled together for so long that the sun disappears, until the room turns this cold navy blue that reminds Wonwoo, stupidly, of Seungkwan. He doesn’t want to be like this anymore, for Hoshi’s sake. If Hoshi really wants to stay. That scares him more than anything, wanting to be better for another person.

The uncertainty of everything weighs heavily all of a sudden. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if this doesn’t work out, he realizes. The gray expanse of the rest of his life seemed normal before; it was all he’d ever expected to have. But now he has this.

He can’t plan a life with an alien. So what is he supposed to do now that he can’t imagine anything else?

He presses a kiss above Hoshi’s ear, just over the bump where his implant sits under his thin skin. Hoshi hums and turns his head to kiss the corner of his mouth, light, like it’s nothing. And Wonwoo guesses, for someone like Hoshi, maybe it is. Hoshi carries his brightness around with him; he doesn’t need Wonwoo for that. He doesn’t really need Wonwoo for anything.

The clouds clear from Hoshi’s face. He shoves a hand into Wonwoo’s pocket and gropes around until his evil little fingers find Wonwoo’s phone. Wonwoo startles. Hoshi waves the phone in Wonwoo’s face and says, “Teach me how to play that boring game you’re always playing.”

Wonwoo takes his phone from Hoshi’s hands and taps Infinite Staircase. He shoves at him until he can hook his chin over Hoshi’s soft shoulder and watch him play. Hoshi wiggles back into his arms until his back is flush with Wonwoo’s chest and their legs are all tangled together in the soft material of Hoshi’s dress.

He reaches around to hold the phone steady on the opposite side of Hoshi’s death grip. As he taps through the welcome screens, he tries to still the whirring of his mind as he says, “Okay. It’s pretty easy. But you suck at buttons, so.”

“Rude.” Hoshi turns his head, sticks out his tongue and blows a wet raspberry in protest, flecking Wonwoo’s face with his acidic spit.

“Gross,” Wonwoo groans, wiping his face on the side of Hoshi’s head. Hoshi doesn’t care. He just wiggles closer.

Carefully, he moves Hoshi’s thumbs into the right position, one over each control button and he covers Hoshi’s hands with his own to guide him through the first round. His voice rougher than the moment calls for, Wonwoo says, “Come on, try it.”

Hoshi growls and taps at the screen so hard that it goes rainbow under the pressure. Wonwoo watches him, and feels, and feels, and feels; everything he wants to keep, everything he has to lose.

* * *

“The bowls are in the cabinet above the sink,” a voice says behind Seungkwan. He startles, grabbing onto the cabinet he’d been pawing through with one hand, and the counter by his knees with the other.

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan pants. “You scared me.”

Hoshi shuffles further into the dimly-lit kitchen from the middle of the night darkness of the hallway. Backlit from the porch light streaming in through the living room window, his silhouette is almost alien; the oversized drape of his dress, gangly limbs, and the sleep-tufted fluff of his hair. But as he comes into the warm cast of the stove light, he looks more like a freshly hatched baby bird. He says quietly, “Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Seungkwan says, slowly lowering himself down from his shameful perch on top of the counter to reach the top shelves. “I was just—”

Hoshi scuttles forward and reaches up into the cabinet he mentioned before. He takes down five bowls and hands three to Seungkwan. Seungkwan accepts them warily.

When he and Hansol returned from their walk, they had found Seokmin sleeping on the floor of the guest room with his headphones still stuffed in his ears. They climbed straight into bed and passed out until Seungkwan woke to the sound of Seokmin’s stomach growling nearly 6 hours later. He hadn’t seen Wonwoo or Hoshi since.

“We missed dinner,” Hoshi says. His voice is very earnest and Seungkwan can’t find it in his exhausted and world-worn body to come up with something snappy to say back.

Instead, he says, “Yeah, weird day. Seokmin-hyung’s stomach woke me up.”

“Did it talk?” Hoshi asks.

Seungkwan looks at Hoshi strangely, but Hoshi is busy reaching for the ramyeon packages above the fridge. Seungkwan replies, “It growled.”

“Nice,” Hoshi says, baring his teeth for a moment, before taking the package between them to tear it open like a kid. Seungkwan narrows his eyes. Hoshi looks flammable.

Taking pity, Seungkwan says, “I’m cooking already, I can just make enough for all of us.”

“Fanks,” Hoshi says, a fleck of plastic coming out with the word, and ending with a weird little bow. Seungkwan smiles with fake courtesy and takes the pack from him.

“And we have kimbap and marinated crabs from my mom,” Seungkwan says. “Do you eat seafood?”

“Hm,” Hoshi says thoughtfully, fiddling with the seam on his dress. “Not yet.”

“Wonwoo-hyung doesn’t like seafood that much,” Seungkwan says, trying not to sound like he’s bragging about knowing. “But even he eats my mom’s marinated crabs. You’ll love them. Everyone does.”

“I like trying things,” Hoshi says, and jumps up to sit on the edge of the counter, kicking his feet against the cabinetry.

Seungkwan hums and fills a pot from the stove with water from the tap. He’s still deciding whether or not Hoshi is an enemy, is the thing. But despite his inclination towards holding everlasting grudges, he knows it’s not Hoshi’s fault that Wonwoo trusted him more than he trusted Seungkwan. Well, he knows now. After Hansol made the point on their walk earlier.

“You’ve known Wonwoo for a long time,” Hoshi says slowly. Seungkwan looks up from where he is diligently watching the water come to a boil.

Seungkwan nods. “Since I was in the womb. Our moms are friends.”

“And you were worried about him,” Hoshi says, tentatively. He looks down at his knees and raises his shins so his feet are out straight, then drops them.

Seungkwan turns away from the stove, and crosses his arms. He looks at Hoshi curiously and says, “Yes. Very. He wasn’t answering the phone.”

“Communications are important,” Hoshi agrees, nodding his head vigorously. Then, “He feels bad.”

“Did he tell you that?” Seungkwan asks, sharper than he means to. He laughs, lightly. “Usually he just broods.”

Seungkwan busies his hands tearing open all of the packs of noodles, fishing out the seasoning packets and setting them aside. Hoshi’s voice is curious when he says, “Can’t you tell?”

Seungkwan’s hands still on the handle of the pot, water now at a roiling boil. Begrudgingly, Seungkwan admits, “Sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Hoshi agrees. A quiet moment passes between them. The house creaks and Seungkwan’s is the kind of exhausted that feels like a fever, made worse by their awful extended nap time. He finds that he’s too tired to even keep up the pretense of frenemyship with Hoshi.

Seungkwan says, “So, how are you liking the island so far?” at the same time as Hoshi leans forward and asks, “He’s really stupid sometimes, huh?”

Seungkwan looks up from the pot and sees Hoshi’s face, a little mischievous and a lot open, trying hard to make it work. So, Seungkwan laughs. And after a moment, Hoshi joins him.

Seungkwan replies, after they settle, “He can be.”

“So much for being an intelligent life form,” Hoshi grumbles. Which is actually funny. Seungkwan huffs out a laugh again, surprised by himself. Hoshi looks so pleased. He smiles down at his knees.

God, it’s all sad, isn’t it? He’s hit with it all at once, that no matter how much he likes Hoshi, neither of them can do anything but love Wonwoo the best they can and hope for the best. The girls who like Wonwoo are always wonderful—smart, funny, pretty, confident. That’s the kind of person it takes to start a relationship with a man who more closely resembles string cheese than a person most of the time.

The thing is they don’t want Wonwoo. They’re charmed by Wonwoo’s face and silence, looking to domesticate a soft gamer fantasy. And Wonwoo doesn’t want them. Because he doesn’t know what he wants. Probably because Seungkwan has been telling him what to do since he could talk.

Everything is so messed up.

Seungkwan takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling, sending a quick apology to Hansol for what he’s about to do. But he’s carrying enough karmic debt as it is. Hoshi should know what he’s getting into.

“Okay,” Seungkwan starts, turning to face Hoshi with his hands planted on his hips. Hoshi looks up from where he’s looking at the pot of water boiling with a weird, longing expression on his face. “I don’t know how serious things are between you two...”

“Wonwoo is my favorite human,” Hoshi shrugs. Seungkwan is going to get an ulcer from this.

He says, “I’ve known Wonwoo a long time. And I just want you to know what you’re getting into.”

“Into?” Hoshi quirks his head to the side.

As Seungkwan places the freeze-dried noodles into the now-boiling water, he continues delicately, “Hyung isn’t hiding some complex inner world, okay? He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what to say. He hurts people when he doesn’t mean to, because they think they know what he wants. But he doesn’t know what he wants.”

Seungkwan stops agitating the noodles and looks sidelong at Hoshi. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Hoshi looks at him curiously.

“Everyone thinks they’re going to be different,” Seungkwan clarifies. He puts the chopsticks at the edge of the pot and crosses his arms across his chest. It’s harsh, but Hoshi needs to hear it. If Seungkwan doesn’t say it, no one will and he’ll be on this island until it implodes on itself. He tries to be gentle as he says, “But he’s just hot and awkward. It’s no one’s fault. I just don’t want to see you get into a situation that’s harder than it needs to be.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Seungkwan-ssi.” Hoshi spreads out his skirt and then bunches a fistful of fabric. He quirks a grin. “I don’t have much to lose.”

Seungkwan’s brows pull together. “What—”

Then, Seokmin emerges from the dark hallway, stumbling into the doorway and smacking his lips. “Ramyeon?” he creaks out.

“Wow,” Seungkwan drawls. He glances with concern back at Hoshi; but right behind Seokmin, Hansol shuffles in on socked feet, his wide mouth open on a big yawn. He eases his way over to Seungkwan and drops a kiss to his cheek. Seungkwan pats him on the shoulder and hands him a bowl.

“Time for dinner, I guess,” Seungkwan announces, clapping his hands together once.

“Yay,” Seokmin says, slumping down to the floor to lay in the dog bed, eyes still mostly closed.

Wonwoo slides down the stairs like a cold front rolling in, hoping to scoop up some food (and hopefully Hoshi) and then retreat back to his room where he can wallow in peace.

Fate seems to have other plans for him, because the dim kitchen light is illuminating every single being in his house, all congregated around a pot and laughing at something.

Wonwoo hesitates for a moment in the landing. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

“Hyung,” Hansol calls. “Did we wake you up?”

Wonwoo slides out of where he had been skulking, honestly, in the dark. He puts his hands behind his back like an old man and shakes his head. Hansol holds up a bowl and says, “Seungkwan made ramyeon. Want a bowl?”

He beckons Wonwoo with his head and it feels more like an olive branch than it should, but if Hansol is crossing enemy lines to offer him a bowl of soup and Seungkwan is still on the island, Wonwoo can’t have damaged things beyond repair.

Wonwoo shuffles into the kitchen and silently accepts a bowl from Hansol while everyone else slurps up mouthfuls of noodles. Hoshi’s perched up on the counter next to Seungkwan and Seokmin is on the floor with Jinki. The house feels warm and full and suddenly Wonwoo doesn’t know if he should be there and be a part of it. He was fighting so hard to keep the house empty, and for what?

Seokmin finishes his bowl and lies prone on the floor in front of Jinki, who has his paws covering his eyes. He prods Jinki’s shiny black nose and Jinki lets out a huff. “He hates you,” Seungkwan says.

“He’s just a little sad,” Hoshi says. “It’s not his fault.”

Seokmin coos at Jinki and rubs one of his soft ears, “Oh, what do we do with you, Jinki?”

Horribly, disgustingly, tears prick at the corner of Wonwoo’s eyes.

He’s just happy to see everyone. It’s stupid and simple but it’s true. He feels lucky that he can have a fight with Seungkwan and then six hours later still be handed a bowl like nothing is wrong. That his friends love him enough to come out to this rock on the off chance he’s not okay. That they’ll try to make Hoshi feel at home.

Wonwoo spent a long time thinking that if he was a person—if he had opinions, if he did what he wanted, he'd be a burden. But here he is causing problems, and his friends are still here. That feels important, more important than whatever problems he had built up in his head to explain why he wasn't responding to Seungkwan.

“You look stupid just standing there,” Hoshi calls to Wonwoo. He smiles at him and there’s a piece of dried green onion stuck to his front tooth.

Seungkwan bumps Hoshi’s shoulder and motions at him to wipe his tooth. Hoshi misreads Seungkwan’s intention and reaches out, asking, “Did you hurt your tooth, Seungkwan?”

"I- No—" Seungkwan reaches out with one fluttery hand and gently swipes the piece of onion off of Hoshi’s square tooth. Hoshi gives it a look and goes, "Oh!" and then pops Seungkwan’s thumb into his mouth.

“Don’t—" Wonwoo starts forward to stop Hoshi from eating his childhood best friend, but then Seungkwan snatches his finger away and Hansol and Seokmin break into peals of laughter at his expression.

“ _I’m_ taken,” Seungkwan says down his nose, clutching his hand to his chest. But he can only hold his expression for a moment before he joins the rest of the table giggling.

“Hey, you’re not taken,” Hoshi says, full-mouthed. He looks at Wonwoo, then at Seungkwan, and smiles a noodly smile. “You’re right here.”

Seungkwan glances at Wonwoo for the first time since he got downstairs, then at Hoshi. To Wonwoo, he gives a little shrug and finally, a quirk of his lips that reminds Wonwoo of schoolyard schemes and inside jokes. He says, “I guess you’re right, Hoshi-ssi. I’m right here.”

Seungkwan strides back into the kitchen and slides into place next to Wonwoo at the sink. Wonwoo looks up and without saying anything, makes room. His elbow bumps Wonwoo’s as they clean and wipe the dishes in perfect sync, years of practice in different apartments making their motions muscle memory.

Seungkwan asks carefully, “Where did Hoshi and Jinki go?”

“Bed,” Wonwoo says awkwardly and Seungkwan hums in acknowledgement.

Wonwoo doesn’t like the way they’re together but not really, cleaning but not fixing. He doesn’t know what to say.

Then, in a burst, Wonwoo blurts, “I’m sorry.”

Seungkwan startles, the cooking chopsticks in his hands clattering against the pot of ramyeon. “Oh. What?”

He glances down at Seungkwan and then hunches his shoulders; Seungkwan narrows his eyes. “I should have called. It was stupid of me not to.”

Seungkwan nods at him, head tilted strangely.

Wonwoo rubs the top of his head. He can’t tell if this is going well.

“Oh,” Seungkwan says. “Well.”

“I didn’t think I would worry you guys so much,” Wonwoo continues, slouching. “It’s just me.”

Seungkwan lets out a warbly little noise.

“So... yeah. Sorry again,” Wonwoo finishes awkwardly.

It doesn’t feel like enough, so he opens his mouth back up and tries again. Just lets it out. “And... Sorry for making you cry. That wasn’t cool. I shouldn’t have said all that, especially after you came all this way just to help me. You didn’t have to.”

The sink sputters

“I know I didn’t have to,” Seungkwan whispers after a second.

“You did, though,” Wonwoo says, nudging Seungkwan gently with his elbow.

Finally, Seungkwan says, “Wonwoo-hyung. You’re surviving on scraps. That dinner was challenging.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. “My mom only made enough food for me.”

"Mm." Seungkwan purses his lips. "How thoughtful of her."

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything, the rhythm of his washing unchanged. Seungkwan coughs.

“We’ll have to go down to the four stalls and bucket of live bait that they’re masquerading as a market,” Seungkwan says. Another branch. “Tomorrow?”

“Six stalls, actually,” Wonwoo says. He passes Seungkwan another bowl to dry. They’re both trying. “Hoshi’s charmed all the aunties already.”

“They haven’t met me,” Seungkwan shoots back quickly. If there was one thing that has remained true in this world, it is that Seungkwan can charm any auntie in two minutes flat and he won’t have his title challenged by _Hoshi_. “They’ll forget your little dumpling faster than early-onset dementia when they see me.”

Wonwoo snorts and hands him a pot.

* * *

In the early morning, no matter what Wonwoo’s weather app says, Yeoseodo is covered in a thick, briny layer of dense fog. Thankfully, Wonwoo usually sleeps straight through the clouds and wakes up when the sun burns them off and shines directly in his eyes.

Today, Wonwoo wakes with the fog to the horrible noise of his alarm and for a second it’s like he’s back in the claustrophobic bottom bunk of his post in training camp, up before dawn. Then Hoshi grumbles next to him and kicks out with one of his feet. It connects sharply with Wonwoo’s shin and he grunts.

“Turn it off,” Hoshi moans, tucking his head under the pillow. “I need eight hours minimum, you know that.”

Wonwoo huffs in a deep breath and pulls the blanket off his legs. Hoshi whines and rolls until the rest of the blanket is gathered under him. Wonwoo grabs the phone and turns off the alarm, then scrambles around on the side table for his glasses.

Honestly. Six in the morning.

Seungkwan better charm every single old lady at the market. They better walk home with armfuls of food, all at a low, low price.

After a quick teeth brushing and hair-combing, Wonwoo deems himself presentable enough to be seen by the island residents. Clearly, though, it’s not presentable enough for Seungkwan, who arches one eyebrow at him, tapping one impatient foot at the bottom of the stairs with a huge woven bag under his arm. He looks ready to start the day, shorts pressed to just above his knee and a soft navy polo pulled over his narrow shoulders. He’s even done his skincare routine, by the looks of the sheen on the apples of his round cheeks. Under that, though, he still looks absolutely exhausted. No amount of caffeine extract can shrink the protruding eyebags apparent on Seungkwan’s face.

“Good morning,” Seungkwan says.

“Debatable,” Wonwoo grunts back, shuffling towards the door. “You look tired.”

“Worrying about you has aged me,” Seungkwan says, influencing Wonwoo’s aimless path forward with one gentle hand on his elbow. “Let’s just get the food and then go back to sleep. Cool?”

Wonwoo grunts in agreement and they both set off down the hill.

The Yeoseodo morning market is not what one would call a destination, per se. It’s more just a swap meet mixed with a family potluck every morning. Wonwoo has never seen money exchanged, only trades being made. The fishmonger, a wizened old uncle, hocks sweet-fleshed white fish and abalone to the auntie the next stall over in return for lush heads of cabbage and dense brown mushrooms. The Kimchi Lady, as Hoshi likes to call her, is in an alliance with the pepper man, for obvious reasons. They’re both teamed up against the off-island merchant, who has started selling radish kimchi that _his_ mother makes, and obviously that just won’t do.

All that to say the second Seungkwan traipses into the market, he’s equal parts enthralled and appalled.

“Do they even have ramyeon?” He looks horrified. “What have you been eating?”

“Up until yesterday, whatever my mom left for us,” Wonwoo says. “But five is more than two.”

“True,” Seungkwan says. It smells cold and fishy on the dock, even inside the warehouse-turned-market. Seungkwan leads Wonwoo from stall to stall, using whatever cash they have on hand to barter for vegetables, some pork and chicken, a huge tub of kimchi, and an old jar of once-pickled plums now filled to the brim with rice.

Wonwoo trails behind Seungkwan and watches him work his magic. He’s been shafted to holding everything in Seungkwan’s unfeasibly big bag. The straps cut into his shoulders and make his feet hurt.

They stop short in front of a stall piled so high with leafy greens that Wonwoo has to search for the short woman manning the stall behind all the foliage.

“Good morning, _ajumoni.”_ The honorific drips off Seungkwan’s tongue and seems to make the woman’s cheeks flush, even under a heavy coat of pale, chalky makeup. “It’s my first day on this gorgeous island and we would _love_ to sample the produce from your fine garden.”

The woman straight up _giggles_ at this, so thoroughly charmed with Seungkwan. He passes her a couple bills and then stops and gasps comically. “ _Imo_ ,” he exclaims. Wonwoo rolls his eyes into the back of his skull. “How are your hands still so soft after you worked so diligently?”

Wonwoo almost gags as the shopkeeper excitedly hands Seungkwan several heads of lettuce and throws in a small carton of tomatoes for free.

“Mm, okay, now it’s just over to the fish and then we’ll be good to go,” Seungkwan says.

Wonwoo wrinkles his nose, but before he can even get a word out, Seungkwan cuts in and points one sharp finger at him. “Don’t even get me started. You’ve been depriving your ‘roommate’ of the only good thing about island living— well, this island’s living— and it’s time someone put a stop to it. We’re getting fish. Shut up.”

Wonwoo unwrinkles his nose.

Lo and behold, the man behind the table of fish is none other than Choi Seungcheol, this time sporting an orange hat, still emblazoned with the same embroidery, his dense body tucked into a pair of fishing overalls and knee-high boots. He smiles brightly as Wonwoo and Seungkwan walk over, all gum.

“Wonwoo-yah!” Seungcheol exclaims. “You have so many friends I’ve never met, apparently!”

Seungkwan plasters on a smile and says, “Nice to meet you, I’m Jeju Island's Boo Seungkwan.” He bows, ninety degrees sharp.

“My neighbor! Yeoseodo Island’s Choi Seungcheol,” Seungcheol says, pointing to his cap and then bowing as far as the table will let him bend. “You looking to buy, or just come to say hi?”

“ _Here_ to buy, on the island to help this one fix up his uncle’s old house,” Seungkwan says. “He’d never admit it, but he’s failing miserably without another set of hands. My roommates and I came to the rescue.”

“Say no more,” Seungcheol says. “I know Jaeduck doesn’t— didn’t have the tools to do any sort of heavy construction, so if you need someone to help with the chicken coop—”

“You’re my guy,” Wonwoo finishes for him. “That would be great, actually, hyung. Hoshi doesn’t like nails that much.”

“Who does?” Seungcheol says with a big, gummy smile. “Just let me know when you need me. You want some bream? Abalone? On me, obviously.”

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan says, a genuine smile replacing the fake one he’s worn all morning, “No, you’re too nice. Hyung, tell him he’s too nice. We have to pay.”

“Cook one of these up for dinner while I’m around,” Seungcheol says, sliding a few fresh-caught bream into a plastic bag. “That’s payment enough.”

The bag on Wonwoo’s shoulder absolutely bulging with enough food to feed a small army, they head back up the hill.

“I didn’t _know_ there were young people on this island,” Seungkwan says. “That changes the whole demographic.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s gay,” Wonwoo informs Seungkwan as he struggles with the huge tub of rice. “He’s dating— uh— at least one of the guys he lives with.”

“Ew,” Seungkwan says excitedly. Wonwoo tries to laugh but he’s so out of breath that it just sounds like a wheeze. “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry anything, hyung?”

Wonwoo shifts his weight to the other foot and his hands squeak on the plastic of the bin and he says, “No, I got it. I’m good.”

Seungkwan looks at him for a second. It seems very pointed. Then, he gently takes the heavy container out of Wonwoo’s grip. Wonwoo gives it easily, surprised by how relieved he is to be free of its weight.

“Better?” Seungkwan says.

It is.

**Author's Note:**

> for more gooey content follow us: [jwaz](http://twitter.com/eggtartsmom) and [miet](http:/twitter.com/kwontent)


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